


I don't want a lot for Christmas

by patrick_hotstetter



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Assumed Relationship, Beards (Facial Hair), Body Hair, Bottom Eddie Kaspbrak, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Eve, Christmas Tree, Comeplay, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Masturbation, Meet the Family, Miscommunication, POV Alternating, Polyamory, Riding, Top Richie Tozier, shared shower
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28255497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrick_hotstetter/pseuds/patrick_hotstetter
Summary: Maggie Tozier has been waiting for what feels like a lifetime for her youngest child to bring home a partner.When Richie was younger, she thought it would be a nice girl. Maybe a smart girl with big dreams, just like her boy. The older he got, the more sure she was that the girl would be a little rough around the edges, maybe a stoner or one of those girls Maggie used to see around the mall with ripped jeans and Sharpie marker all over their arms that would inevitably become tacky tattoos once they hit legal age. She’d made peace with that, but as time went on, Richie continued to not bring girls home. No girls and then no women.And then Maggie blinked and Richie was thirty. Went, wonderfully intuitive Went, said to her one night on their way to bed, that week’s phone call with their son fresh in their minds, “I think Richie might be gay.”or, Richie brings his boyfriends home for the holidays.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Maggie Tozier/Wentworth Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Eddie Kaspbrak, Mike Hanlon/Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Mike Hanlon/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40
Collections: It Rare Pair Secret Santa 2020





	I don't want a lot for Christmas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [camerasparring](https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/gifts).



> Hello, giftee! I hope you like this rare pair holiday fic. 
> 
> **Content Warnings:**  
>  only one fuck, misunderstandings, assumed homophobia, racist microaggressions, hair, it isn't mentioned in the fic but know that Eddie has Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You stuck in his head the whole time, Christmas movie tropes, character death mentioned, Sonia Kaspbrak mention, Richie is a middle child, people meaning well, Eddie does something with spreadsheets, Mike is a librarian, Richie is a local meteorologist, not a warning but please visit Thunder Hole if you can when we have a society again, triple income no kids? TINKLEBERG!!, not nearly enough holiday season wordplay I'm sorry I'm not funny but have some angst instead, and so much cheesy cheese.

“Oh, um. I have to spend Christmas with my parents,” Richie says when Mike asks him what they should have for Christmas Eve dinner. 

“I have a whole thing planned for you guys, after,” he continues. “For the new year.” 

Eddie, plucking away at the number keypad attached to his laptop with a USB cord, jerks his head up violently, eyes narrowed. 

“What?” he asks lightning fast and before Mike has a chance to ask himself. 

Richie rubs the back of his neck, not looking at Eddie or Mike. He’s smiling awkwardly. They’re standing in the kitchen, Richie leaning against the sink, concealing their supper plates, and Mike sitting next to Eddie at the island. Eddie, ever the workaholic, has a spreadsheet open and is manipulating something with a complicated-looking formula. 

Mike had been reading a book on his phone when the notion of Christmas dinner with his family, his new family, caught him by surprise. He’d asked the question without thinking. _What did they want for Christmas dinner?_ Should have been straightforward. Eddie would argue for chicken and Richie would argued for ham and then Mike would make a blue joke about meat, a thinly veiled reference to their dicks, and then they all would laugh and go with chicken because with Eddie you have to pick your battles and Mike wants Eddie to top him at some point in the new year. 

Instead, Richie is going to see his family and he hadn’t thought to tell them. 

“This is the first I’m hearing about this,” Eddie says. His eyebrows are in his hairline, rushing up his forehead, making impressive time. He turns to Mike, “Did you know about this?” 

“I did not,” he replies, keeping his tone neutral. He crosses his arms over his chest. 

“This is the first we’re hearing about this, Richard.” Eddie presses on the lid of his computer, pushing it half closed. He’s invested in this conversation, but not enough to give it his undivided attention. 

Richie hunches his shoulders up by his ears. “I forgot! I go every year, this is the first one where we’ve been, I don’t know! Living together!” He tucks his hands in his pockets. Richie is not a small man, not as big as Mike, but still not small. He’s skilled at folding in on himself though, until he is small, hides in plain sight. “I forgot! I have the New Year’s thing planned!” he says again. 

“It’s okay,” Mike starts to say, but Eddie interrupts. 

“Okay, but we’re also your family,” Eddie interrupts. “And we don’t have anyone else, so maybe we wanted to spend the holidays with you.”

“You don’t even like Christmas!” Richie tosses his hands in the air, eyes rolling up to the ceiling. 

Eddie pushes his laptop fully closed, eyes narrowed dangerously under his impressively expressive eyebrows. Richie is already leaning back, prepared for an attack. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, Mike feels like he’s watching the Richie-and-Eddie show and not participating in the Richie-Eddie-and-Mike show. 

When they argue like this, Mike is fine with that. 

“I _love_ Christmas. I fucking excel at Christmas,” Eddie says, overenunciating his words in a way that makes the flight-or-flight response in Mike’s brainstem light up.

Eddie points at Mike, who shoots his eyebrows up his forehead, ready to deny accusations if needed. “But more importantly, _most_ importantly, Mike fucking _loves_ Christmas, and you love Mike, so maybe figure something out!” 

Mike, touched that Eddie remembered, reaches a hand out and pats his thigh. A quiet _thank you_. 

“Shit,” Richie says. “Fuck, Mikey. I’m sorry, I forgot.” 

“It’s okay,” Mike says again. It is okay. He doesn’t love Christmas for Christmas’s sake. He loves his memories of Christmas and he loves his memories of his grandfather. Sometimes things don’t come together the way he thinks they will, and that’s okay. “It’s a made-up holiday celebrating a baby’s belated birthday as a way to market Christianity to pagans in Western Europe.” 

“Richie.” Eddie ignores Mike, his fingertips wedged into the seam between the screen and the keyboard of his laptop, ready to fling it open and resume his complicated spreadsheet. Richie’s eyes are huge under his glasses. “Figure. It. Out.” 

They lose him after that, buried in his work like he gets. Richie looks at Mike like he’s apologizing for kicking his puppy and Mike can’t take that, so he slides off his stool and moves around the island, stopping in front of Richie, still leaned against the sink. 

“Shit happens, Rich,” Mike shrugs. He smooths the wrinkle between Richie’s eyes with soft fingers, tilts his face so he can press a kiss to his forehead. Richie sighs, wraps his arms around Mike’s middle. 

“I’ll call my mom. We’ll figure it out,” he promises and then buries his face in the crook of Mike’s neck. Mike pats his back and pointedly doesn’t get his hopes up. 

Mike’s family is gone. 

It’s not something to be upset about. He’s a grown man and they’ve been gone for a long time. His parents died when he was young, in a fire he escaped, and then his grandmother in his early teens. His grandfather was the last to go, a stodgy old man so stubborn he almost defied Death itself, having had three heart attacks and a stroke before he died quietly in his sleep. 

Mike misses them, and he mourns them, but he isn’t upset about it. They were loving, Mike had been loved, and now they’re gone.That’s all there is to it. There isn’t anything he can do about it, not in any real or literal sense, so he focuses on the things that he can do. 

Like Christmas. 

Mike’s grandfather had loved Christmas. 

Leroy Hanlon was a cantankerous old coot, but his eyes sparkled as soon as the clock struck midnight on November 1st. He would holler for Mike to drag down the decorations from the attic and turn up the radio, the local stations already playing the classics. Mike’s grandpa couldn’t hold a tune to save his life but he would bang around the house and yell the lyrics into a mug of hot chocolate with a liberal amount of whiskey swirling around the marshmallows. 

The Hanlons had been farmers in Derry for as long as there have been Hanlons in Derry. Part of that was an annual Christmas tree farm, which was a carefully maintained orchard of pine trees Leroy meticulously farmed year in and year out, careful to cull on a strict schedule. Mike would wake up early to help his grandfather chop down trees before school, stay up late into the night with a flickering flood light bleeding through the pine needles. Mike knew he was growing into a man when the thick gloves he would borrow from Leroy began to fit the expanse of his palms, the length of his fingers, and not slip and slide on his hands while he curled his fingers around the wooden handle of his favorite axe. 

Mike’s grandfather was obsessed with Christmas and even though Mike isn’t really interested in the pagan traditions dressed up in Christian pomp and circumstance, he does his best to honor his departed family members by celebrating the holiday as best he can. 

As best he can is usually a piddly little plastic tree with garland and ornaments he bought the year before at the big box stores 85% off after Christmas sale. It’s kind of sad, him alone in his apartment with a tiny tree and a cup of hot cocoa (with considerably less whiskey than Leroy had poured in his), but it’s what he can do. 

This year is different though. This year, he has Eddie and he has Richie. He has them both, at the same time, and the home they all share together, and he can’t wait to put up a tree and some lights wrapped around the porch. 

It’s important to him, sharing this holiday cheer with the people he loves the most.

Four days later, Mike and Eddie are curled up together on the couch, Eddie’s legs slung over Mike’s lap and one of his hands cradled in two of Mike’s. He uses his other hand to scroll on his phone, holding it at what must be an uncomfortable angle, wrist bent weird, to keep Mike from looking at the screen. Must be Christmas shopping. 

Eddie tossed an episode of a holiday baking competition show up on the TV, and even though he isn’t looking up, he has opinions about every confection and cake paraded across the judges table. 

“Lisa needs to pull it together, no one wants tears in their fucking sugar cookies,” he says off-handed, and Mike nods. She does, but he has no idea how Eddie knows that. 

It’s quiet and peaceful, the two of them in companionable near-silence, when Richie bursts into the house through the front door, boots thumping on the hardwood and scarf nearly falling off his neck, one side trailing on the floor. “You’re coming with me for Christmas,” he pants, ripping his gloves off his hands and flinging them onto the side table by the door Eddie put there for their keys and mail he hopes other people will deal with. 

“Who is?” Eddie asks, not looking up from his phone. 

“Both of you,” Richie replies. Mike purses his lips. 

“Who made that decision?” 

Richie unwinds his scarf and sets it down next to his gloves. He unzips his hoodie and hangs it up next to Eddie’s specially insulated heated jacket and Mike’s Carhartt. Richie only wore hoodies through the winter until Eddie told him in no uncertain terms that he’s a grown man who isn’t allowed to live like that anymore, so he bought him the gloves and the scarf, expecting him to buy his own coat but he never did and it doesn’t look like he’s planning on it any time soon. It makes Eddie’s eyebrows meet in the middle of his forehead but he doesn’t make a Thing out of it like Mike knows he must be dying to do. 

Mike thinks that’s growth. 

Mike also thinks Richie is a grown man and if he wants to freeze to death, that’s his prerogative. 

Richie’s nose is so red, vibrant and almost painful looking. He touches his fingers to his cheeks and rubs them warmer. There’s a light dusting of snow in his hair, but he ignores it. Mike wants to reach over and brush it off for him. He is unwilling to move to do it. 

“I was on the phone with my mom, trying to get out of Christmas dinner with them, and she wouldn’t let me, so I said my boyfriends want me to stay home--” Eddie makes a noise Mike can’t decipher but Richie barrels through it, “--and she said that it was high time she met you anyway and she basically steamrolled me, it was impossible to get a word in edgewise--” 

“God, I wonder what that’s like,” Mike says. He squeezes Eddie’s hand in his and smiles at him when he shoots him a dirty look. 

“Anyway!” Richie finally shakes the snow out of his shaggy hair, acting like a wet dog. He looks a little more like a person and less like a cherry popsicle now. His glasses are fogging though, which is hilarious. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but,” Richie says this nervously, fingers tapping against his thighs and avoiding their eyes. “But it would be okay. If you did.” 

Eddie sits up, drags his legs off Mike’s lap and leaves him feeling cold in the chilly air Richie let into the house when he came inside. “We’d love to!” he says, before Eddie can say anything at all. His eyes are on Richie, giving him a warm smile, but he can _feel_ the look Eddie is shooting him. He doesn’t know _what_ exactly the look is, he just knows it’s burning a hole in the side of his head. He blindly shoots out a hand to settle it down on whatever part of Eddie he can reach. It ends up being his hip and he spreads his long fingers over the curve there. 

“Are you sure? It’s a lot, the holiday and then meeting my parents. I mean, I’ve never brought anyone home before, it’s going to be weird, probably.” Richie is shuffling now, hovering around the archway between the foyer and the living room. It’s ridiculous, he’s a grown man and this is not that hard. 

“Come here,” Mike says, instead of the ruder things he wants to say. He gestures for Richie to come closer and he does, tracking wet melting snow and gritty salt all over the floor. He falls into the couch on Mike’s other side. He’s sitting with his hands in his lap, and Mike rolls his eyes. He tugs on his fingers with his free hand and forces him to look up at him. His glasses aren’t fogged up anymore and Mike can see the weird panic building in him, ready to spill all over Eddie’s expensive sofa. 

“I want to meet your mom,” Eddie cuts in, and Mike feels him sit up on his knees behind him. Eddie leans over his shoulder, draping himself over Mike’s back and shoving his hand gracelessly in Richie’s face. He touches his cheek gently, but nothing about how he got there was at all. “I want to know where all of this--” he brings his other hand up on Mike’s other side and gestures grandly at Richie. “--comes from.” 

Richie cracks a smile and Mike can feel Eddie’s self-satisfied preening against his neck. 

“And now we don’t have to buy a tree!” Eddie declares. Fake ones are a hotbed for dust and disease, apparently, but real trees could have bugs and any of them could develop an allergy to pine at any moment. Mike reminds himself that he loves Eddie and nods, agreeing. It’s not practical to have a tree here _and_ at Richie’s house. It’s fine. 

“So,” he says. “What’s the plan?” 

*

Maggie Tozier has been waiting for what feels like a lifetime for her youngest child to bring home a partner. 

When Richie was younger, she thought it would be a nice girl. Maybe a smart girl with big dreams, just like her boy. The older he got, the more sure she was that the girl would be a little rough around the edges, maybe a stoner or one of those girls Maggie used to see around the mall with ripped jeans and Sharpie marker all over their arms that would inevitably become tacky tattoos once they hit legal age. She’d made peace with that, but as time went on, Richie continued to not bring girls home. No girls and then no women. 

And then Maggie blinked and Richie was thirty. Went, wonderfully intuitive Went, said to her one night on their way to bed, that week’s phone call with their son fresh in their minds, “I think Richie might be gay.” 

It’s not something Maggie had considered, but the moment he said it, looking up from his reclined position in their bed, book propped up on his chest, reading glasses perched on the tip of his nose, she knew he was probably right. 

Still, she’d asked, “What makes you say that?” even though she knew. Maybe she’d always known, she’d just needed someone else to say it first. 

Went doesn’t mince words and only says what he means. He hadn’t answered her question directly and had shrugged instead, broad shoulders covered in red flannel pajamas with soft cartoonishly large white snowflakes. His shirt was unbuttoned enough to reveal a graying tuft of chest hair. 

“Should we say something?” Maggie had wondered, sliding down in bed, resting next to her husband. 

That they loved and supported Richie regardless went unsaid.

“There must be a Facebook group for this,” Went had said, because he spent most of his freetime on Facebook, in different groups, talking to people from all over the world. Maggie doesn’t go in for that stuff. She’s a people person, thrives in a room full of strangers and friends alike. Went prefers the quiet of his iPad, finger constantly scrolling, pecking out replies and comments and making posts in his dentist pages. 

Maggie had smiled at him, touched the pads of her fingers to the hair on his chest, tucked her hand under the fabric of his shirt and cupped his pec, used that point of contact to draw him in closer. Went had gone easily, setting his book on his side table and flicked the switch on the base of his lamp. The room went dark, only a sliver of light slipping out past the edges of their black out curtains from the street lights outside. A car drove by, tires sloshing in the early November slush. 

They’d gone to sleep that night and the next morning, Went had joined four Facebook groups for parents of LGBT+ children and Maggie had found a PFLAG meeting in Bangor and added the address and the time to her personal calendar. 

Three years later, they were still waiting for Richie to come to them, to tell them. To share this part of his life with them. 

He hadn’t, and maybe he never would have at all, but this Christmas, he’s bringing a boy home. A nice man he’s been seeing for a year and a half. He’d told her himself, on the phone.

Maggie is so ready for someone to love her son as much as she does, as much as Went does. She’s been waiting for so long and she is _ready_. 

*

Mike is the first one up on Christmas Eve morning. He crawls out of bed, moves Eddie’s arm off his middle and Richie’s leg from its hitch over his hip, and shuffles into the kitchen. The floor is cold on his bare feet, seeping in through the thin skin in the arch of his foot and chilling up his legs. He staggers over to the coffee pot and switches it on, Eddie having prepared it last night for this morning. 

The sun is peeking out over their neighbors’ rooftops and Mike wraps his arms around his chest, cold fingers rubbing warmth into the goosebumps on his arms. He wore one of Richie’s old improv group t-shirts to bed and he regrets it now, wishes he’d worn one of his waffle knit henleys instead. Richie’s shirt, too small for him now and tight across Mike’s chest, too short on his torso, rides up his stomach and exposes his back to the frigid morning air when he opens the cabinet over the coffee maker to grab a mug. He picks the one with a chip on the rim. It’s his favorite. Mike sets it down on the counter, next to the sink, and looks out and into the street outside. 

It’s dead quiet, the sparkling ice covered road is bathed in pale light and fills Mike with a contentment he only feels when the world is soft like this, before the day starts. He likes the quiet. He likes the loud, too, he would have to, being in love with two tornados in skin suits the way he is, but this is also nice. Mike has to duck his head to see under the dark blue curtains he and Richie had picked out for the kitchen when they moved in. 

The coffee maker beeps, signalling a finished pot. Mike tears himself away from the sunshine glinting off the ice dripping in dangerous spikes off their front porch to reach for the carafe, turning and grabbing his mug at the same time. He expects to touch the warm plastic handle, but Eddie is already there, snaking his hand between Mike and the coffee pot deftly. He’s clutching a large metal travel mug in his other hand, holds it steady while he pours from the overfull pot. Mike raises his eyebrows. 

“Can you fill me up after?” he asks, wiggling his ceramic mug. 

Eddie, who is already dressed for the day in khaki slacks and a black polo, presses his lips into a firm line. “This _is_ for you,” he says. “We don’t have time to sit down for coffee this morning.” 

“Eddie, it’s 7:00 AM. We have tons of time.” Mike is already reaching up and putting his mug back on the shelf though. Eddie hands him the warm travel cup, full to the brim with black coffee. Mike doesn’t need room for cream, and Eddie is already handing him the longest spoon from their utensil drawer so he can stir in some sugar from their sugar bowl. 

“We don’t,” Eddie assures him. “I looked up traffic reports this morning and it’s wall-to-wall out there, and with the ice…” He shakes his head. “We’ll need to leave before eight to get there on time.” 

When did he have time to do that? It’s been maybe twelve minutes since Mike left their bedroom and he was dead to the world. He’s already been up, dressed, and prepared himself for the day, making the necessary (to him, anyway) adjustments to their schedule. Eddie never ceases to amaze him. 

Mike snorts. “You are not going to get Richie up before eight, Eds.” 

“Fucking watch me.” 

The plan is this: Richie and Mike are going to pile into Eddie’s unnecessarily large luxury car and make the three-hour drive from their home in Falmouth to Richie’s parent’s house on Mount Desert Island. Originally, the Toziers lived up north, way in the boonies, but they retired to the mid-coast to live out their twilight years surrounded by tourists and leaf peepers and tacky art galleries but also by the natural majesty of Acadia National Park. 

Mike likes to hike the trails there, visiting the beaches and navigating the rocky coast. He takes pictures and posts them to his personal Instagram. He has more followers than the account he runs for the library, which he shouldn’t feel smug about, but he does. The library director is ancient and technophobic and won’t allow him to post anything but programming calendars. 

Sometimes, Eddie goes on hikes with him. He looks cute in his shorts and hiking boots with ankle support, kerchief tied around his neck. He puts sunscreen on his exposed cheeks, along the slopes of his shoulders. He looks good on the top of a mountain, staring off contemplatively over the violently green pine trees beneath him. He’s beautiful next to a verdant Maine summer. Eddie is blotchy and red next to the autumn foliage, which has its own advantages. Eddie is a pretty blotcher. 

Richie refuses to go hiking, but he kisses their sweaty faces and sticks his nose in their armpits when they get back. He will go with them to the beach though, which is nice. If it’s too crowded, he keeps his t-shirt on, but if it’s just them, he’ll take his shirt off and stretch out in the sun like a house cat in a window, sand and pointy beach rocks be damned. 

All of this is to say that Mike and Eddie and Richie have been going to Mount Desert Island, and often, for years, not necessarily when they’ve all been actively dating each other in a polyamorous throuple, but still; Richie never mentioned that his parents live there. 

They’ve driven right by their house, Mike realizes as Eddie is pulling into their driveway, many times. 

Eddie parks behind a tan Subaru with a Susan Collins bumper sticker from at least six years ago. Richie climbs out of the car first, avoiding the look Mike turns in the passenger’s seat to shoot him over his shoulder. 

Something terrible settles in the pit of Mike’s stomach. He glances over at Eddie, who is fiddling with his phone, turning off the GPS and pausing the true crime podcast he was making them listen to on the last leg of their journey. Eddie looks up and Mike knows by the pinch between his eyebrows that he’s upset too. Mike bites his bottom lip and shrugs. Eddie exhales heavily, rolls his shoulders, and shoves his phone in his pocket. Richie pushes open the back door and blows a breath of cold air into the front of the cab. 

“Come on,” Eddie mutters. He jumps down out of the driver’s seat and Mike follows him, pulling himself out of the car. He unfolds his long limbs and stretches his arms up into the sunshined bright blue sky. 

Something heavy hits him in the gut. He rushes to grab ahold of whatever was thrown at him and groans when he sees Eddie’s second piece of luggage, the one he uses to keep his shoes separate from his other belongings. He shifts the bag so it’s slung over his shoulder, jutting awkwardly out from where it hangs by his side. Richie is holding his own and Mike’s bags, his backpack hanging off one shoulder and Mike’s L.L. Bean tote in one of his hands. Eddie is carrying his own duffle bag, Mike sees when he looks over.

They stand there, waiting for Richie to take lead. He just stares back, blinking owlishly behind his glasses. “Richie,” Eddie snaps, head jerking, gesturing to his parents’ house. 

Richie jumps like he’s surprised he’s being addressed. “Oh,” he sighs, back bent. The hand not holding Mike’s bag tucks itself into one of his pockets. “Come on, then.” 

Mike and Eddie follow Richie up the walkway, cobbled and lined with solar-paneled lanterns. There are two plastic reindeer on either side of the step up to the porch, colors on their backs faded with time and bleached by the sun. They have clear red noises that glint in the sunlight and Mike sees little light bulbs on the inside. Two Rudolphs. 

There are Christmas lights wrapped up the handrails, down the balusters, and up the columns holding the roof over the porch. Mike doesn’t know what colors they are, but the neatly curled lights look stately and polished in a way that does not match their reindeer at all. Mike wonders what the inside must look like.

Richie doesn’t knock on the door, and why would he? this is his house, in a way. His parents’ house. Even if he never lived here, it’s still his. It would have been Mike’s house too, if his grandpa had ever moved. His house was Mike’s house always. Because that’s what it means to be a family.

When they’re all inside, Mike and Eddie squeezed in between Richie and the front door, Mike looks around, takes note of the polished hardwood and the plush, forest green runner up the stairs and held in place by heavy gold carpet rods that remind Mike of a library he saw in England once. The summer before he met Eddie. 

There’s a shining gold light fixture hanging over the foyer and something in the air smells like butter and sugar and warmth. It’s still early enough in the day, barely mid-morning, but it feels like the evening, like yule logs and wearing a sweater while sipping scalding hot chocolate. It feels good to be here. 

“Richie, is that you?” a woman calls out, and Richie's spine straightens. 

He sets their bags down by the door and shouts back, “Yeah, it’s me.” 

A woman pops her head out from around a corner. She has dark hair like Richie’s, but straight and greying heavily. She’s wearing a pair of glasses on her head and a blindingly red shirt, one that matches her blossoming poinsettias on a low table in the hallway. When she sees Richie, she smiles and it is stunning, her nose wrinkled and her cheeks appled despite her age. “Richie!” she exclaims, just as big and as loud as her son. She can’t see, because he is hiding behind Richie’s broad back, but Eddie winces at the volume.

“Hey, mom,” Richie says. He has both hands in his pockets, the way he does when he’s nervous. His mom rolls her eyes and slips out from around the corner, wiping her hands on an apron around her hips that floats like a poodle skirt. 

“Come here,” she orders, and steps up on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around his shoulders. Richie awkwardly drags his hands out of his pockets and pats her on the back. Mike shifts and must make noise because he draws her attention, her eyes cutting over to Mike and zeroing in like a hawk who’s found its prey. 

“Who is this?” she asks, playful. She’s pushing Richie back, turning him around to face Mike and Eddie. His face is red, but Mike doesn’t have time to make fun of him for it because he’s too busy looking at Richie’s smirk on his mother’s face, the lilt of his voice reflected in hers. Mike loves her already. 

“Mike Hanlon, ma’am,” he tells her and sticks his hand out for her to shake. Her hand is small and warm in his, but her grip is strong. Her handshake is efficient. 

“Well, Mike Hanlon, it’s so great to meet you! Please, call me Maggie.” Maggie smiles and her blue eyes are bright like twinkle lights. 

“Mom, this is Eddie,” Richie says, gesturing to Eddie. He’s standing at his full height, which is shorter than Maggie still, she’s a taller-than-average woman, with his shoulders back. He’s smiling the canned smile he breaks out when they run into Mike’s coworkers outside of work. He wants to make a good first impression, and Mike’s heart aches a little with how much he loves this absolute dork. 

Maggie’s brow furrows, but she recovers quickly, smoothing out the wrinkles on her forehead and shifting to shake Eddie’s hand as well. “Any friend of Richie’s,” she says with a grin. Mike freezes and so does Richie. They look at each other, and then Richie looks away, down at the floor. Eddie, when Mike looks back at him, is still smiling politely but there’s a pinchedness to him that wasn’t there before. 

“I’m going to ah--” Richie rubs the back of his neck. “I’m going to get everyone settled, okay mom?” 

“Sure thing, honey,” Maggie says and turns to pat Richie’s cheek. “There’s a couch in the guest room and another one in the den, whatever works for you boys.” She points at the ceiling, presumably where the rooms are upstairs. She tugs a little on Richie’s beard before wandering away, back down the hallway and into her kitchen that smells like cookies. 

Silence rings out between them. Eddie’s anger, visible in the way his mouth puckers like a blowfish, grows every moment Richie refuses to meet his eyes. The energy between them grows thick and Mike feels like he’s going to choke on it. 

“Not here,” Mike tells them both, grabbing them both by the shoulders to get their attention. Richie shakes his head, shaggy hair flying, and then bends down to pick up his and Mike’s bags before leading the way up those ornate stairs. 

“Come on,” he says, then mounts the bottom step. Eddie and Mike share a look before following his lead. 

*

“What’s he like?” Went asks her when Maggie walks back into the kitchen. He’s leaning forward in his chair at the table, ever-present iPad tucked against his chest. Maggie puts her finger to her lips, shushing him. She tilts her head so she can hear the boys trapse up the stairs. Her ears aren’t what they used to be, but she can still hear the way Richie slams a door closed from a mile away. 

Once she’s sure they’re out of earshot she smiles wide and says, “So handsome!”

Went rolls his eyes. “What else?”

“He seems nice. Has pretty eyes.” Maggie busies herself in the cabinets, pulling down her best mixing bowls and a heavy Pyrex glass measuring cup. She ignores Went’s hum for more information and heads over to the walk-in pantry where she keeps her flour and her sugar. She keeps spices in there too, dry ingredients that don’t need to be refrigerated. 

She dumps this all out on the counter, McCormick’s ground cinnamon almost rolling off the island but stopping just short of the edge. 

She relaxes her shoulders. 

“Richie did bring a friend too though, which I wish he had asked before doing.” Maggie sighs, “He doesn’t bring anyone at all home for 20 years and then all of a sudden he’s got a boyfriend and a friend he likes enough to bring to Christmas?” 

Went smiles softly and she pretends she doesn’t see it. She grabs up the rogue spice bottle instead, tips it right side up. “Maybe he’s an orphan,” Went suggests. “The friend.” 

“Maybe,” Maggie concedes. “It is a little weird still. He’s in his thirties. I didn’t bring friends around for the holidays when I was his age.” 

“We also had two kids and another on the way at his age,” Went reminds her. He lights up his iPad, which is how Maggie knows he’s done talking about it. 

Nothing phases this man. 

Maggie sighs again and drags a one cup measuring spoon out of the top drawer in the island. She rips open the five pound bag of flour and starts scooping out the fluffy powder into one of her bowls. 

She needs to have the sugar cookies in the oven before Rachel and her grandbabies get here tomorrow, which means having them in the refrigerator to chill in the next couple of hours. 

So much to do! Not enough time to do it in!

“Maybe one of those boys can help you,” Went suggests, looking up at her with his glasses perched on the edge of his nose. He has trouble reading his screens with them on. Sometimes he places them on the top of his head, in all that curly white hair. 

His eyes are warm and Maggie remembers the way she felt the first Christmas they spent together. She was already showing, Rachel growing and rolling around her uterus, and Went’s brown eyes had sparkled in the bright white lights hanging from their evergreen tree. “Maybe the boyfriend?” he says, and Maggie loves him so much she could just burst with it. 

Maggie is a people person, she thrives socially. Quality time with her son’s boyfriend is exactly what she needs. 

*

The Toziers have a guest bedroom, a master, and a room that was once Richie’s youngest sister’s. She was still in high school when their parents retired to the coast, so she has a room here while the other Tozier children stay in the guest room.

“Here,” Richie says, pushing open one of the doors with his shoulder. 

The room is large, everything in this house is, with that same beautiful hardwood with a deep purple rug under a queen-size bed. There’s a couch along one wall and a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit holding plastic tub upon plastic tub, color coordinated in neat rows. Mike sets down Eddie’s shoe bag and reaches over, runs his thumb over the lip

"What did you tell your mom, Richie?" Eddie rounds on him, hands on his hips. He tilts his head up so Richie can't avoid his eyes. 

"Nothing! Everything! I don't know," Richie exclaims, shoulders hunched up by his ears and then immediately sagging. 

Mike reaches a hand out and touches Eddie's elbow, fingers trailing down and catching on his wrist. "Eds," he says, drawing Eddie's attention away from Richie. "He told his mom, she isn't ready yet. That's not his fault." 

"Why are you so fucking reasonable?" Eddie barks. "Shut up!" His nose is scrunched, and the knuckles on his fists resting on his hips turn white under the stress of his hold. 

"Hey," Richie tries. Eddie doesn't look at either of them, eyes trained on the ceiling. His lips are moving. Mike and Richie share a glance. 

"I'm sorry," Eddie says. He opens his mouth to say more, but waves his hand in the air over his face, jacket crinkling. He blows hot air. "I'm sorry." 

"Thank you," Mike says instead of _it's okay_ because Mike has also been to therapy. 

Everything is so awkward, Mike almost can't stand it. It's so tense he expects to hear a snap and feel a rubber band sting on his hands, like he used to do when he was studying and bored in undergrad, plunking an old rubber band and watching it snap back against the farm rough skin on the backs of his hands. He bites his lip. 

"We're together for the holidays," he says. "That's what matters." Mike reaches both of his long arms out to collect his boyfriends and pull them in close. Eddie ends up squished against his chest and Richie is ducked down enough to fit under his chin. Someone is breathing raggedly due to the angle and Mike doesn't really care who or to release them from this forced affection. 

"Richie, I'm sorry about your mom. She'll come around. She's going to love me." Mike digs his chin into the top of Richie's head and smiles when he grumbles about it. Eddie's fingers find his hip and pinch him hard. He ignores it. 

"Fuck you, she's going to love me too!" Eddie's voice is muffled in Mike's pecs. 

Richie laughs. 

"Fuck you!" Eddie yells, but it loses its impact when Eddie's hot breath is ghosting over Mike's nipple. He chooses to ignore it. 

Someone knocks on the door, and Richie springs away like Mike is made of fire. Eddie frowns, but backs up too. He moves to set his bag on the couch while Mike opens the bedroom door. 

On the other side is a woman with dark curly hair and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. She has Richie's nose and jaw and the same jut to her chin. 

Richie has two sisters, one older and one younger. Rachel is the oldest, by almost three years, then Christine, who is younger by a lot. Six or seven years. This woman has a short bobbed haircut and green eyeliner smudged under her eyes. 

"You must be Christine," Mike says with a smile. He's never met Richie's sisters, but he's always wanted to.

"Who are you?" she asks. Tact runs in the family then. 

"Yeah, Richie," Eddie snarks. "Who is that?" 

"Chris," Richie says, stepping up and pushing Mike back. "Fuck off." He shuts the door. 

"That was so fucking rude," Eddie tells him. He's refolding a red polo, sets it on the end of the couch. 

"I can't wait to meet the rest of your family," Mike says both sincerely and also sarcastically. He's slipping. This isn't going how he imagined it at all. 

“Only children.” Richie mimes spitting. He closes his eyes and flings himself down on the queen bed, groaning and scrubbing at his face. 

Three grown men in a queen bed. At least Mike will get some quality cuddling in. Eddie is either an octopus or a landmine. Richie rolls to the edge of the bed and does not move until the sun comes up. Mike can't wait to be spoons in a utensil drawer.

"We have to go down and help," Richie grouses. 

"You did this to yourself," Eddie reminds him. Richie nods under his hands, hair scratching against the red and green quilt spread out on the mattress. 

"Is Rachel coming too?" Mike asks. He strips out of his coat and smooths a hand down the knitted cords of his cream-colored, cabled fisherman's sweater, the top two buttons undone. When he looks up, Richie and Eddie are both looking at him like he's the waiter emerging from the kitchen with their food held aloft on a plastic tray. 

"No," Richie replies, licking his lips. "Not until tomorrow." 

Eddie finishes whatever piles he's making out of their suitcases on the couch and wipes his hands on the seat of his khakis. "Good," he says. "Too many new people makes me nervous."

"Not you," Richie says, dry like sandpaper. Mike smirks. 

Eddie doesn't respond. He levels them both with a look sharp enough to cut diamonds and huffs, his chest concaving with the force of it. He rolls his eyes and marches out the door. When Mike and Richie don't immediately follow him, he pokes his head back through the doorway and beckons them with an impatient hand wave. 

Mike reaches out and hauls Richie off the bed with a clasped hand. Their chests bump and Mike kisses the curve of his chin, where it meets his jaw, beard hairs catching. 

"Come on, hot stuff," Richie says, tucking his index finger in Mike's belt loop. He pulls him out of the guest room by it. Mike goes easy. 

*

Wentworth is sitting in the kitchen, his iPad propped up against his chest, watching his wife flit around between the fridge and the island. She's had the faucet on for almost three minutes. Wentworth thinks about standing up and turning it off, but he doesn't want to mess up whatever she has going on. 

Maggie is an easy-going person, generally, but it's mostly for show. All that bubbling energy hides someone deeply anxious and Wentworth has, after over 40 years by her side, learned when to step in and when to sit down and tap through Facebook. 

Now is a time to like me-mes and make all of his comments in all lowercase because he turned off the auto-capitalize feature and he can't figure out how to turn it back on. 

Just as Maggie realizes the sink is still running, a cute sound squeaking out of her throat in surprise, Richie slips into the room. He's taller than the refrigerator and almost too tall for their doorway. He's not particularly large, it's just that their house is smaller and older and built back when Wentworth would have been considered a wildly large person. He's not now, and after almost 70 years on this Earth, he's come to grips with that. 

Wentworth sets his iPad down on the table, darkening the screen so his messages won't distract him. A short man in a smart, almost too small polo follows him inside. He's plastered to Richie's side like a barnacle. 

Richie's face is ruddy, splotchy with red patches over his pale cheeks. He clears his throat, like he didn't already have Wentworth’s full attention, and gestures to the man next to him. 

"This is Eddie," he says and then shoves both hands in his pockets. 

Eddie raises his hand and waves _hello_ at Wentworth, smiling awkwardly at him. The bridge of his nose is flat, like maybe he broke it and it wasn't set right. He's all harsh lines and angles and something about his nervousness feels familiar. 

He likes Eddie immediately. 

"Hello, Eddie." Wentworth waves back. "It's nice to meet you." 

"You too," he says. 

Richie clears his throat again and gestures to a third man, someone Wentworth hadn't noticed standing behind them both.

"This is Mike," he says, and Wentworth cocks his head to the side. 

Richie’s friend is huge, tall and broad and handsome as anyone in an L.L. Bean catalog with his deeply textured sweater and strong chest. Wentworth wonders what he does for a living. Chopping firewood in a Lifetime movie, surely. 

"Hello, Mike," Wentworth says, nodding to him. Any friend of Richie's. "I hope you don't mind the couch there in the spare room. There's another one in the den if any of you boys wants more privacy." 

Richie's eyebrows knit together and something shadowy crosses over his face, but before Wentworth can fully categorize it, it's gone. He smiles and says, "Thanks, pops." 

Wentworth nods again and picks up his tablet. There's a new parent in his Parents of LGBTQ+ Kids group who just private messaged him right before Richie rounded the corner into the kitchen. He wants to shoot them a quick reply before the start of their busy Christmas Eve day. 

"Are you going to go with your dad to get the tree?" Went hears Maggie ask over the clicking of his built-in keyboard. He hasn't figured out how to turn the sound off. 

"Um," Richie sounds hesitant. Wentworth looks up, ready to tell him he's got it handled, when Mike raises one of his broad, square hands. 

"I can help with that," he says. 

"No, not a job for a guest! Richie," Maggie hisses. She's wiping her hands off on her forest green apron, getting the white lace around the front pocket filthy with egg residue. "Help your father!" 

"But Mrs. Tozier I--" Richie starts to say in a southern accent, the one he tosses on when he is uncomfortable. It's one of his oldest voices and the one he probably uses the most. 

Eddie touches the inside of his wrist and raises his eyebrows pointedly. Richie presses his lips together and then sighs. "Alright," he says. "Let me grab my coat." 

"Mike can come too," Wentworth says. Mike's face lights up, not with a smile necessarily but something twinkles in his eye. For some reason, Maggie glares at him from across the kitchen. 

"Thank you, Mr. Tozier." 

"Please, call me Went. You too, Eddie." Wentworth turns off his iPad and flips the flimsy lid over the screen. He leaves it on the table and stands, groaning at his screaming joints. 

"We're going now?" Richie asks. "Is Christine coming?" 

"Christine is going to make cookies with me and Eddie," Maggie says and Eddie looks just as surprised as everyone else. 

"Christmas tree shopping is manual labor unfit for guests but cookie making under tyrant Tozier isn't?" Richie pats Eddie on the back, pushing him further into the kitchen. "How does that work out?" 

"Richie," Eddie starts, already huge eyes bugged out on his slim face. He looks like he's in a panic.

"Have fun, Eds," Mike says with a winning smile. He tugs on Richie's sleeve to get his attention. They file out of the kitchen and back into the hallway, leaving Eddie alone with Wentworth and Maggie and the three mixing bowls Maggie has out on the counter.

"Godspeed, son." Wentworth says on his way by, clapping him on the shoulder. He chooses not to see the longing look Eddie sends him over his shoulder. 

Maggie wanted to spend the morning with the boyfriend. 

*

"Eddie is a terrible baker," Richie laughs. He slides into the backseat of his father’s four-door sedan and settles in the middle, arms coming up to rest on both front seats. Mike, with his longer legs, appreciates the gesture. 

“Who does the cooking at your house?” Went asks. He seems more open than Maggie, more accepting, maybe, which strikes Mike as odd. He opens his mouth to reply but Richie beats him to it. 

“Eddie does, he just sucks at baking. He has negative patience and is terrified of uncooked eggs,” he says. 

“He’s afraid of salmonella.” Mike nods at the sight of Went’s raised eyebrow. 

“ _There are over a million cases of salmonella infections a year, Richie!_ ” Richie pitches his voice, a slight edge that sounds like Eddie when he’s on a tear. It’s uncanny and Mike looks at him in the rearview mirror, smiling. 

Richie seems looser here, out of his parents’ house, his shoulders less tense than they were. Mike watches him lean back in his seat, stretch his long arms along the headrests in the backseat. 

“How long have you known Richie, Mike?” Went asks next. He doesn’t sound like he’s especially comfortable making small talk, but he’s making an effort, and Mike can appreciate that. He doesn’t like small talk either, but he also loves Richie enough to try. 

“About three years,” he replies. He catches Richie’s eye in the rearview again and bites the inside of his cheek when Richie winks at him, grinning and looking for all the world like the roguish stranger he met after a night of drunken karaoke at the only gay bar in the state. He ducks his head and smiles, peeking out the front window so he doesn’t have to look at anyone, uncharacteristically bashful. “He’s been a pain in my ass ever since.” 

He hears Went laugh, a soft huff that comes and goes so fast he almost misses it. “He’s been a pain in mine for 33 years, so you’ll have to excuse me for not having a whole lot of sympathy for you.” 

It’s Mike’s turn to laugh. From the backseat, Richie says, “Hey!” but he doesn’t sound offended. If anything, he sounds delighted. Happy that they’re getting along so well. 

Silence stretches as they drive through the slush and the ice, making their way through the town and out into the trees. Mike remembers seeing a place next to the main street heading into town, a shoulder off the road where a couple of guys selling trees off the back of their trucks had set up shop. He thinks Went is headed that way. If he isn’t, Mike’s sure there are a hundred little spots in the area where people are selling trees, some wrapped up in netting, some in ropes. 

Richie is quiet, but he’s drumming his fingers on his knees, clicking his tongue, and generally being a nuisance. Mike ignores him and Went does too, choosing to focus on the road. He says to Mike, “What do you think of Eddie?” 

Mike sucks in a breath, taken aback by the question. He loves Eddie, obviously. They’ve been together on-and-off since undergraduate school and Mike loves him like breathing, like putting on his shoes every morning. Mike loves him in such a whole way that there was no way he wouldn’t also love Richie. How could he not, when Eddie loves him too. Loving Eddie lets Mike love Richie. Loving Richie lets him love Eddie. It’s hard to put that into words. Instead he says, “He’s great? I love him.” 

Went’s lips turn down dramatically, bottom one stuck out and shiny in the straining sunlight, his head nodding. Richie does that sometimes, when he’s processing information. He looks like a fish and so does his dad. It’s cute.

“That’s great, he seems like a great guy,” Went says, turning off the main street and down a barely plowed road. Ice crunches under his tires and when Mike looks out the window, the pine trees on either side of the street are heavy with snow.

Before long, the trees clear again and they’re rolling past single-family homes, their chimneys smoking and their front lawns decorated with giant plastic candy canes or inflatable snowmen. Mike chews on his lip, shifts his hips so he can pull his phone out of his pocket. In the private chat he has with Eddie, separate from the constant chatter in their group chat, Eddie is losing his mind about baking with Maggie. He sent a series of increasingly deranged messages about the impact of sugar on his health, the way Maggie doesn’t wash her hands after she touches the ingredients, how uncomfortable he is alone with new people. He’s taken blurry pictures of himself, of the floor, of his nice black polo covered in flour. In the next one he sends, he looks like he’s going to murder the wooden mixing spoon he’s holding. It’s dripping with egg and sugar. Mike saves that one to his camera roll for later. 

Behind him, Mike can hear Richie shuffle. He’s leaning over the back of Mike’s seat, flyaway hair tickling Mike’s cheek. He turns a little, so he can see Richie in his periphery, and tilts his phone so Richie can see Eddie’s pictures too. He snorts and says, “Can you send that one to me? I need it for a thing.” 

“What thing?” Mike asks skeptically, but shoots it off anyway. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Richie waves his hand in front of his face, like he’s clearing bad air. 

Mike drops it. He heads into his settings and makes that picture of pissed off, flour-covered Eddie his phone background. His lockscreen is Richie and his background is Eddie. He has a picture on his desk at work of the three of them on the beach, Eddie with his cheeks bright red and Richie in a blindingly white t-shirt. Mike had been in the middle, both of his boyfriends’ arms wrapped around his waist, Richie kissing his cheek with his foot popped in the air. A stranger from the next set of towels over had taken it for them and it’s probably Mike’s favorite picture in the world, save for the one of his parents on their wedding day. He keeps that tucked away someplace safe and dry and filed in archive-quality folders. 

He keeps dumb pictures of Eddie and Richie on his phone and shows them to anyone who lingers for too long in his vicinity. 

“What’s that?” Went asks and when Mike looks over, he nods to Mike’s phone. He’s back in his texting app, thumbs poised to reply to one of Eddie’s tirades, probably the one about sugar because Eddie thinks it aggravates his ADHD but it doesn’t work like that, exactly, the way Eddie means. The picture of Eddie looking sourly at the camera is large, taking up most of his screen space. 

“Eddie getting into the holiday spirit,” Richie replies before he can. Mike can hear the shit-eatting grin on his face without seeing it. His heart swells. 

“I see.” Went turns the wheel with his whole body, really leaning into it, frown evident on his face even as he tries to hide it with a raised elbow. Mike lets it go and types out his reply to Eddie while Went glides into a pocket of little shops lining this rough street. They pull into a gas station that apparently doubles as a Christmas tree farm during the holidays. Mike and Eddie have stopped at this store to buy post-hike waters and trail mix and to use the public bathroom. They’ve stopped here with Richie too. Mike wonders how many years Richie and his family have bought trees here. 

He wonders how many times Richie almost told them about it over the gas pump during a refill. 

Went pulls into a spot near the back of the lot, close to where the trees are set up. He puts his car into park and climbs out without looking back. Mike swivels in his seat, eyebrows shot up his forehead. Richie shrugs.

“I have no idea,” he answers Mike’s wordless question. He sighs and Mike waits for him to continue. “I’m so sorry about them,” he says finally, eyes slipping closed. 

“Hey,” Mike says, voice steadier than he feels. His chest is concave. “This is hard. You’re doing your best.” 

Richie scrubs his hand over his face. When he drops his hand to the door handle, his cheeks are ruddy and he looks tired. Mike’s skin hurts with how badly he wants to hold him. He also wants to shove him into the Atlantic and drive away. 

“Let’s go help your dad.” Mike waits until Richie nods, avoiding Mike’s eyes and ducking his head, before opening the passenger’s side door. 

Went is already chatting with the tree farmer when he and Richie make their way over. Richie has his hands in his pockets and Mike is reaching out to touch one of the pines on his way by. The needles feel good, scraping his hands like they did when he was a boy. When he would take off his grandfather’s work gloves and just _touch_ the soft needles, stroking with the grain. 

He hasn’t been this close to a real tree in years. There’s something about a live Christmas tree, something magical about a tree you have to water and nurture and cultivate to create the right atmosphere, the perfect holiday cheer his grandfather was chasing after grandma died. After his son died. 

Mike hasn’t tried, really. He went to therapy instead. 

He breathes deeply and feels something stir in his chest, the smell of evergreen and crisp winter air chipping away at something he’d thought he had a hold on after so long. 

“How are you, Rich? Haven’t seen you in a minute,” the tree farmer asks. 

He’s a short man wearing a t-shirt and muddy jeans. He has a hoodie on over his shirt and that’s dirty too. His hairline is hidden under a baseball cap and Mike has no idea how old he is. He could be 56 or 24, he has no idea. 

“Hey, Norm,” Richie says. He smiles at the man and pulls one of his hands out of his pocket to hook his thumb back at Mike. “This is Mike.” 

“Heya, Mike,” Norm says with a wave. 

“Mike used to work on a tree farm,” Richie tells Norm like he’s sharing a secret. Norm’s eyebrows disappear under the bill of his filthy cap and Mike can feel his eyes travel from Mike’s shoes to his face and back down again. He shifts uncomfortably. 

“Which one?” Norman sucks on his teeth, seems to reconsider his question. “Or maybe not from around here.” He rubs his forehead with his thumb and pushes his caps up until it’s only resting on his head. “Not from here, I expect.” 

Went rolls his shoulders, uncomfortable. Mike is used to white people thinking he’s from away. He isn’t. He isn’t from away. All four of his grandparents are from Maine, he’s more a Mainer than most. More than Richie, more than Eddie who actually grew up in New Hampshire and not Maine at all. He opens his mouth to respond but Richie, in keeping with today’s theme apparently, gets there first. 

“Mike’s from Derry, actually. Hanlon Farms.” Hanlon Farms isn’t a big deal, really, but if this man knows tree farms, he’ll know Hanlon’s. Mike sold it after his grandfather died and he went to school, but the new owners kept the name, hoping to capitalize on it, the recognition of it. Their corn and their dairy, the pork and the trees. It’s doing well, sometimes Mike sees their specialty cheeses at the small local groceries he shops at when he can convince Eddie to skip Whole Foods. 

Norm whistles, leans back and regards Mike anew. He nods. Mike didn’t need his approval, doesn’t care about it at all, but he looks over at Richie, at the way his eyes crinkle behind his thick glasses and he feels good. He feels wanted, a part of something. 

Richie touches his shoulder, but only long enough to squeeze it. They’re still in the mid-coast, far enough off the tourist beaten paths that they should be more careful. 

“I didn’t realize I’d brought an expert with us,” Went says. He gestures to the line of firs, Fraser and Douglas and Nobles, and ushers Mike forward. “We don’t know what we’re doing, do we Richie?” 

“Sure don’t, pops.” Richie grins and says to Mike, “Please help us Obi-Wan Ken-Michael, you’re our only hope!” 

Mike rolls his eyes. He ignores Richie, the wink he shoots him, and turns to the trees. 

The trees are beautiful, full and thick around the base and symmetrical going all the way up to their pointed tops. The needles are dark and green, almost shiny on their undersides. Mike thinks back to their harvest, the one he and his grandfather would do every year, staggering which lines of trees to pull and which to leave for the next year. 

Their crop wouldn’t normally look so good on Christmas Eve, most of the really pretty ones would be gone by now, bought up by people with more forethought. Mike wonders why the Toziers wait so long to get started, to get into the spirit. The tree at his house would have been up and decorated and redecorated by now. 

“What do your special eyes see, Farmer Hanlon?” Richie asks, coming up out of nowhere and surprising Mike. Mike can feel the warmth of him from behind, with how close he is, can hear the rustling of his hoodie against Mike’s thick Carhartt. His face is next to Mike’s, close enough he could probably kiss him if he turned his head. 

Mike is surprised by his bravery, way out in the boonies like this. Richie gets itchy with public displays of affection in Portland, even. 

For just a moment, a fraction of a minute, Mike thinks about how hot it would be to kiss Richie into one of these trees, hold him close, surrounded on all sides by sticky sweet pine scent. The musk of it would linger in his hair for hours. Mike licks his lips and thinks about doing it, thinks about kissing Richie. He doesn’t, even though he wants to.

“I think he stole these right out of the woods over there,” Mike says instead, pointing to where the tree line is a little thin. The snow is cleared away and there are drag marks in the ice. “They’re freshly chopped.” 

Richie laughs, pushing his arm down. “I mean, did you pick one?” he asks. “What are we looking at here?”

Mike tucks both of his hands into his pockets. He nods to the tree in front of them, a luscious Douglas fir with full, beautiful branches wrapped in a red net. Mike knows a good tree when he sees one. Richie considers his pick. He reaches his hand out and brushes the pads of his fingers against the needles. 

“Pretty,” he murmurs, eyes wide and lips open. 

Mike agrees. 

He’s not really looking at the tree anymore. 

“Nice choice, son,” Went says and slaps him on the shoulder. Mike ducks his head to hide the grin twitching against his lips. Richie catches it away, like he was watching for it, and puckers his lips at him. What an asshole. 

Went pays Norm for the tree and Richie helps Mike secure it to the top of Went’s car before they head back to the Toziers’ house, Mike watching the reflection of the needles blowing in the wind from the side mirrors the whole way back. 

*

It’s not that Maggie doesn’t… like Eddie. It’s not! 

Eddie is smart and fast and hyper focused when given a task. Maggie can appreciate that in a man. It’s just that… she wanted to spend time with Richie’s boyfriend, the tall, handsome man with the good manner and the quiet air about him. Richie’s friend, this short, strange man who told her not to eat the cookie batter in her own fucking kitchen, isn’t who she wants to get to know. 

She knows so much about him. She knows about his allergies and his diet, what diet she should be on based on her age and her body shape. She knows that he doesn’t like the poinsettias in the hallway but he does like the lights wrapped the posts holding up the roof over her porch. He doesn’t know what color they are yet, he just likes the idea of it. 

He hasn’t stopped talking since the boys left to grab the tree and Maggie is about to stuff a dish rag down his throat. 

At one point, she thought Christine would be her saving grace, that she would come into the kitchen to help with the cookies like she promised, but she only popped in long enough to say, ‘Bye!’ before heading out to spend the day with some high school friends Maggie never approved of. 

Worse than Christine’s poor choice in friends is the way she’s left Maggie alone with this noisy, giant opinion in a polo shirt masquerading as a man. 

She might write Christine out of the will. 

“Technically, no one should eat corn,” he says. He’s mixing one of the sugar cookie doughs by hand, working his arm aggressively and beating all the air out of the flour. Maggie hums, side eyeing Eddie’s mixing technique and wincing every time his rubber spatula scrapes the bottom of the bowl. Maggie didn’t know that rubber spatulas could even _do_ that. 

She is truly learning so much from this man. 

“Do these go in the oven?” Eddie asks, lifting the spatula out of the bowl with a grimace on his face. His lips pucker and he sniffs it dramatically, nostrils flaring. He’s covered from head to toe in flour. There’s something smudged on his pointed chin, and Maggie can’t be sure but she thinks it might be dried egg. After the ten minutes he spent cursing raw eggs, she’s afraid to tell him it’s there. It’s better, she thinks, if he figures it out on his own. Preferably when she’s not in the room. 

“Not yet. We have to chill them first,” she says. “They won’t hold their shapes in the oven if we don’t.” 

Eddie nods and shoves the spoon back in the bowl. 

“Do you bake a lot, Eddie?” Maggie asks, to be polite. She thinks she knows the answer, since he has such… colorful ideas about the nutritional value of sugar. 

“No,” he says, confirming her suspicions. He’s frowning at the cookie dough. 

“You’re doing great.”

Eddie looks over at her, suspicious, like he knows she doesn’t mean it. She doesn’t. He’s a grown man, he should be better at this. 

Maybe she’s still upset that Went took the boyfriend. Maybe she’s taking it out on Eddie. 

In her defense, he doesn’t make himself easy to like. 

They’re saved from making further conversation by the front door bursting open and slamming against the opposite wall, shaking the house. Eddie startles, jumping and clutching his chest like a damsel in a Turner Classic Movie. 

“It’s just the boys,” Maggie says, dismissive. She ignores Eddie’s dirty look and wipes down her counters with a rag, catching the crumbs in her cupped hand to toss in the trash. 

There are a series of curses and grunts, Richie and Went trading loud barbs while Mike laughs in the background. Maggie smiles absently. She likes the sound of Mike’s rumbling laugh, the way it seeps into walls. Her son has good taste, she thinks to herself. 

Beside her, Eddie grunts and interrupts Maggie’s thoughts. He’s still mixing the cookie dough. 

“I think that’s done,” she says, an anxious trill in her voice. “You can stop now.” 

Eddie drops the rubber spatula like it’s on fire. He wipes his hands off on the seat of his tan pants. “Sorry,” he says and sounds weirdly bashful. Maggie purses her lips, perplexed, but before she can say anything, Richie and Mike walk into the kitchen, faces red and Richie’s hair messy with pine needles.

“What the fuck happened to you?” Eddie reaches up to pull a needle off of Richie’s shoulder and flicks it back in his face. 

“Don’t worry about it, Edwina,” Richie says. He picks up that same needle and places it in Eddie’s perfectly styled hair, ruffling it in the process. 

If looks could kill, Maggie’s son would be dead as a doornail. 

“Maggie,” Mike cuts in. She looks up at him and watches him smile with his eyes. “Went wanted your opinion on the tree placement, if you have a minute.” 

“Of course!” Maggie blinks. She brushes her hands off on her apron and pushes her bowl of sugar cookie mix up the island counter and away from the edge. She says to Eddie, “I’ll come back in a minute and we can wrap these up.” 

“Okay,” he shrugs. He’s still glaring at Richie, ignoring her and staring unblinkingly at her son.

It’s a little unsettling, the intensity of his stare, so Maggie curls her fingers in the sleeve of Richie’s green flannel and tugs him along behind her. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go help your dad.” 

Richie follows behind her, laughing all the way. 

*

Mike watches Eddie flip Richie off as he rounds the corner from the kitchen.

He waits until Maggie is in the hallway, her house slippers slapping against the hardwood floors, to dip his finger in the pale batch of sugar cookie mix and bop Eddie on the nose with it. 

Eddie’s eyes widen in surprise before they narrow into dangerous slits. His lips press together firmly, right hand reaching out to smack Mike on the shoulder. Mike dodges and slides his finger into his mouth. He sucks off the dough, grinning around his finger while Eddie fumes. If he were a cartoon, smoke would be coming out of his ears. 

“You know why I got stuck here in the kitchen and you got to go pick the tree, right?” he says, righteous fury pulling the lines of his shoulders taut. He rubs at the sugary dot on his nose with the back of his hand and winces when it comes back wet. 

“Because I grew up chopping down trees and you didn’t?” Mike hazards a guess. He finds a loose roll of paper towels and rips one off for Eddie. He hands it to him without being asked. 

Eddie scoffs. “Richie’s dad didn’t _know_ that. He saw you and he saw me and he decided that the small, effeminate man got to stay in the kitchen and the big, strong one got to go on the boys’ adventure.” 

“Wow,” Mike says. “You got all that from that, huh?” 

“Tell me I’m wrong.” Eddie balls up his fists and sets them on his hips, the way he does when he’s about to demand to speak to a manager. The thing is, Mike can’t. Mike can’t say for certain that Went didn’t look at Eddie and make snap judgments about him, about what kind of person he is. People do it to Mike too, in different ways. 

Mike doesn’t say anything at all, because nothing he could possibly say would break Eddie out of whatever funk he’s driven himself into. The ghost of Sonia Kaspbrak looms large in Eddie’s life still and Mike doesn’t know how to exorcise her. Instead, he reaches out and slides one of his big hands over one of Eddie’s, still fisted on his hip. Mike tugs on it, slips their fingers together and holds Eddie’s hand. 

He says, “Do you want to make out in the pantry?” 

Eddie huffs. He rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth but he also squeezes Mike’s hand and drags him across the room. He forces the accordian door open and pushes Mike inside. The force of it makes Mike stumble, makes him fall into the shelf where Maggie keeps their crackers and chips and bags of rice cakes. 

Eddie is on him like a gale force wind, shoving his hands up Mike’s shirt, under his sweater, from the bottom and pushing it up his belly. It bunches awkwardly around his chest and Mike doesn’t notice it once Eddie’s thumb finds one of his nipples. He presses down hard, fingers fanned out around his pectoral and digging in, Eddie’s blunt nails biting. 

Mike bites back a groan. He fits one of his hands to the back of Eddie’s neck and tugs him up. He smashes their lips together, mouths open and breathing heavily before they even get started. Eddie’s tongue rolls against his own, electricity licking up Mike’s spine and exploding out his throat in a moan Eddie swallows up. 

Sometimes, being intimate with Eddie feels like a game of chicken. They one-up each other so often, sex is a game and they both play to win. Mike rakes his nails through the short hairs at the back of Eddie’s head and spreads his fingers up the curve of his skull. He curls them in his hair and yanks on it, pulls his head back. Eddie’s lips are slack, wet and slick and shiny even in the low light of the pantry. Eddie doesn’t make a sound, he’s scarily silent when he wants to be, and Mike buries his face in Eddie’s exposed neck. He kisses his throat, under his Adam’s apple, and bites under his chin. 

“Beard burn,” Eddie says like a curse. “Do not give me beard burn, Mikey.” 

Mike bites him again, but does pull back. He drags Eddie with him and up his body, his filthy polo getting caught up in Mike’s cream-colored sweater. The fingers on Mike’s chest clench over his nipple and Eddie’s other hand comes up quick like lightning and grabs on to the shelf above Mike’s head for leverage. Eddie must be up on his tiptoes now, since Mike is tipped back as far as the shelving unit will allow him, forcing Eddie to crawl up his body to meet his lips.

Kissing Eddie always feels like kissing a freight train and he loves it, the intensity of it, the way he fits tucked under his chin almost but will fully attempt to bowl him over. 

Sometimes, Mike lets him. 

Today though, Mike licks into Eddie’s mouth and pulls him closer with his tongue hooked behind his teeth. Eddie groans and bites Mike’s bottom lip hard enough for Mike to see stars. 

“Fuck, Eddie,” he breathes and wraps both of his hands around Eddie’s waist. He wants to push him down on his knees and make him forget everything anyone has ever said about how delicate he is. No one who can take Mike down the way Eddie can could ever be described as weak. No one. Instead, he runs his hands up Eddie’s back under his polo and drags his fingers as hard as he can from Eddie’s shoulders to the dip over his ass. He dips his fingertips under his waistband, just because he can. 

“Do you think it would help our cause with the Toziers if they caught us in here?” Eddie asks even though Mike is sure he already knows the answer. Of course it wouldn’t.

Mike ignores the question and says, “Went’s kinda hot, right?” His lips brush over Eddie’s, unwilling to move back far enough for a proper conversation. Eddie huffs and squeezes Mike’s tit. 

“In a dad way, sure,” Eddie says, dismissive. 

“He has kind eyes,” Mike argues, kissing under Eddie’s eye gently. He scrapes his teeth over the curve of Eddie’s cheekbone. 

“You have kind eyes,” Eddie says, accusatory. Mike smiles, kissing his face again, bringing his hand up to hold him in place when he tries to squirm away from the affection. 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Eddie grunts, annoyed, and pushes at Mike’s chest. He brings his other hand down off the shelf and uses it to pull at the lobe of Mike’s ear. “It fucking is,” he says. “It’s fucking annoying.” 

Mike laughs. “Okay, baby,” he says, patting Eddie’s ass through his nice khakis. 

“Can we please get back to making out?” Eddie pushes on Mike’s forehead, forcing his head back against the shelf. 

“Sure,” Mike says. “If you can keep up.”

Eddie groans, “Fuck you, man.” 

Mike looks at Eddie, makes eye contact with him and raises his eyebrows, smirk tugging against his lips, something he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. Eddie’s eyes are dark, his pupils huge in the dull light seeping in around the flimsy accordion panels from the kitchen. 

“You can try,” he says. 

And then Eddie does. 

They kiss frantically, slamming their bodies up against the shelves. The back of Mike’s head crinkles a bag of Lay’s potato chips. It’s deafening, loud over the breathy grunts falling out of Eddie’s mouth and into Mike’s. He almost misses the sound of Maggie’s slippers on the tile floor. 

Panic surges up Mike’s chest, seizes his heart and spreads down his arms. He pushes Eddie away, hand on his shoulder. 

“Wha--” he starts to say, but Mike slaps his hand over Eddie’s mouth. 

Eddie’s eyes grow pinched around the edges, eyebrows knitted in irritation. He licks Mike’s fingers, like a child, while Maggie putters around the kitchen. Mike ignores his and tips his head, wordlessly telling Eddie that they are in _trouble_. 

“What are we gunna _do_?” Eddie whispers. Eddie whispers the same way someone else might scream, so it sounds like he opened his mouth and a bullhorn fell out. 

Mike rolls his eyes, and pushes Eddie back and his sweater down just in time for Maggie to fling open the accordion door. Her eyes are wide, and her mouth is set in a firm and unrelenting line.

She looks a little like Eddie, angry and terrible at hiding it. 

“What are you boys doing in here?” she asks, and Mike feels a chill in the air with how cold she is, all of a sudden. 

“Getting umm...” Eddie grabs something at random off the shelf, a bag of yellow corn shells, and brandishes it with a dramatic lack of flourish. “These. Thanks for your help, Michael.” 

Mike huffs, more uncomfortable than he’s been since he was a teenager, but not so uncomfortable that he won’t smirk at Eddie and slap him too hard on the shoulder. He tilts forward, almost stumbling, and glares at Mike. Mike only smirks harder, blinking slowly. He says, “No problem, Edward. Happy to help.” 

“Come help me with the cookies, Eddie,” Maggie says, venomous. “Went needs Mike in the living room.” 

“Sure thing, Maggie,” Mike says with a winning smile, crinkling his eyes the way he knows people like. She frowns at him and it catches him off guard. He walks out of the pantry and back into the kitchen, Eddie hot on his heels. 

“You have flour,” Maggie hisses. “On your pants.” 

Mike looks down and sure enough, there is a little white handprint on his crotch from his favorite Great British Baking Show contestant. Mike tries to wipe it off with his hand, but the powder is ingrained in the fabric of his nice jeans. He looks up, mortified, and Eddie is smirking at him. 

Eddie sucks on his teeth and points one if his index fingers in the air. He spins it once, and then busies himself at the counter. He’s pulling a roll of saran wrap towards himself and ignoring Mike now, like an asshole. Maggie isn’t looking at him either. 

“Here,” she says, and hands him a plastic pitcher of water. “For the tree.” She still isn’t looking at him. Mike’s ears burn.

Mike heads into the living room, rubbing frantically at his flour spot with one of his hands the whole way, the other one struggling to keep the water jug upright. He doesn’t get enough of the flour off and Richie definitely notices it. 

Mike suffers through Richie’s thinly veiled innuendo while he helps a stoney-faced Went set up the tree, spinning the screws into the trunk and securing it in the stand. He dumps the water into the base and then shoves the pitcher at Richie, hitting him hard on the chest. 

“Thanks for helping,” he says and Richie mimes wiping his brow. 

“It was hard work, but someone had to hold down the couch, Mikey.” 

*

Once the tree is set up, Wentworth goes into the garage to hunt down his ornament box. He leaves the connecting door open, letting cold air seep into the house. When he pops his head up, he can see Richie and Mike in the living room, Richie talking and Mike standing with his arms folded over his solid chest. 

Wentworth wonders if he’s seeing anyone. A guy like Mike? No way he’s single. Logic dictates that he must be though, if he’s here with his friend’s family and not with his girlfriend. Or boyfriend! He could be gay. Or bisexual. Maybe he’s asexual! Wentworth has a much bigger vocabulary for these things now and he should know better than to assume a stranger is straight. 

Chastising himself, Wentworth drags the green tub of Christmas balls and handmade holiday tree decorations from his children and grandchildren down from the shelving unit tucked into the corner of the garage. He does this gracefully, quietly, and he lauds himself for his cat-like reflexes. He could still perform surgery, probably, if someone gave him a scalpel and a willing mouth. 

When he looks up, tub in hand, Richie is pointing to the kissing ball Wentworth hung up in the archway between the living room and the hallway this morning, vibrant green needles cutting into the dull white walls and high ceiling, giving the room a fun, holiday season pop of color before someone can even step inside their winter wonderland.

Wentworth is about to step on first stair back into the house proper when he sees Richie turn his cheek and point to his bearded face, eyes closed dramatically, hamming it up for Mike, who rolls his eyes but dips forward, chest bumping into the plastic water pitcher Maggie uses to make ice tea in the summer months, and kisses Richie with a loud smack Wentworth can hear from the garage, through the open door. 

Richie smiles. He turns his head and puckers his lips, kissing Mike for real, bringing his hand up to tug on his classically attractive fisherman’s sweater. 

Well. Wentworth thought he raised his boy better than that, at least. Better than a cheater, anyway. 

Wentworth spins on his heel, rubber-soled slippers gliding easily on the polished concrete floor. He walks back the way he came, over by the shelf, and kicks the unit, making a pointed scuffling noise. He sighs loudly and tuts for good measure. He comes around, back to the door, and stomps up the steps. 

Richie and Mike are at an appropriate distance apart once more. 

Wentworth sighs. 

He needs to talk to Maggie. 

When Maggie is done for the moment in the kitchen, she and Eddie join Wentworth, Richie and Mike in the living room. They decorate the tree together, and Wentworth almost manages to forget that his son is a philandering asshole. He watches him with Eddie, the way they tease and jab at each other, and it makes Wentworth remember being young and in love. 

Maggie used to pull on his metaphorical pigtails too. 

Wentworth was never at good as giving it back as Eddie is. That boy is a forest fire waiting to happen. He’s all talk, a constant stream of chatter, and Wentworth would be afraid of Richie getting lost in all that hot air but shying away has never really been Richie’s strong suit. 

He’s shoving a Santa hat on Eddie’s heavily styled hair and laughing as he sputters curses at him, pushing at his shoulders in annoyance. They aren’t traditionally affectionate, Wentworth can admit, but there is real familiarity there, really appreciation and love. 

Why is Richie betraying him like this? 

A question for his Facebook groups, surely. 

“I have a couple of frozen pizzas for dinner tonight,” Maggie says about an hour after the sun goes down and Wentworth’s stomach starts to grumble in earnest. 

“All that sodium…” Eddie grumbles, but Richie plants his hand in the middle of his face and pushes him back. He leans over Eddie on the couch to speak to his mother directly. 

“He means, ‘thank you,’” he says and grins wide when Eddie flails under his hand.

“You're welcome, Eddie,” Maggie says, but there’s a bite he isn’t expecting from her. He furrows his brows at her, but she ignores him from her place next to the tree, hanging up an ornament Rachel made for them in the second grade. 

“I’ll go get those started,” Wentworth says. “If you would like to join me, Mags?” 

Maggie rolls her eyes, but does follow him out of the room, down the hallway and into the kitchen. She leans against the island with her arms crossed over her chest. She’s still wearing her apron, which Wentworth always finds endearing. 

He stoops down and opens the freezer drawer and pulls out two boxes of pizza. He sets them down on the counter and turns to preheat the oven in the island. It’s easier for him to use than the one in the wall, which has a proving function and two different broilers… Wentworth is intimidated by it’s shiny chrome finish and the computer where knobs would be in an old school stove, like the one in the counter. Maggie loves it but it gives Wentworth the willies. 

“What’s going on, Mags?” He rips open the cardboard boxes and then the plastic the pizzas are wrapped in. Wentworth watches her from under his lashes while he works. 

Maggie sighs deeply, shooting a glance at the pantry, then at the hallway. Someone, it sounds like Eddie, maybe, shrieks with laughter. Maggie pitches her voice low, like she’s sharing a secret. “They’re cheating,” she says, mouth pressed in a firm line.

Wentworth’s shoulders sag. “You saw it too?” 

“Yes!” Maggie hisses. “They aren’t even subtle about it! How can they _do_ that?!” 

“I don’t know either, Mags. I have no idea! I thought we r--” Wentworth is interrupted by the slam of the front door. There’s a commotion over by the door and when he pops his head around the corner, Christine is there, kicking off her boots and yelling at Richie, who is yelling back. 

They never really grow up. 

Christine reeks of weed and cigarettes, even from all the way in the kitchen, and stomps up the stairs before he can offer her some pizza. 

“At least one of our children isn’t a problem,” Maggie sighs and looks at Rachel’s high school portrait they keep in the kitchen next to matching ones from Richie and Christine. 

Wentworth winces. “Don’t say that.” 

“I was kidding,” she says, dismissive. She slams the pizzas in the oven and wanders over to the pantry. She reemerges with a crinkling box of Oreos. They’re the holiday special Oreos with the dark red double stuffed filling and raised snowmen on the hard cookie. She jams two in her mouth right away, cheeks puffing up like a chipmunk. 

“Cute,” Wentworth says, and means it. Black cookie crumbs fall from her lips and down the front of her shirt as she smiles sarcastically. 

He really loves this woman. He kisses her Oreo-crusted lips to prove it. Nothing else today makes sense, but this still does. 

*

Maggie almost doesn’t make it through dinner. 

Eddie and Mike keep _smiling_ at each other, like they aren’t sitting in _her_ house, eating _her_ food and breaking _her_ son’s heart with each and every one of their treacherous breaths. 

So Maggie is hostile. So what. She eats an Oreo with each bite of pizza and glares at Wentworth who won’t stop being _nice_ to Eddie, that little homewrecker, and she is hostile. She isn’t ashamed of her behavior. 

“Does that taste good? Together?” Richie asks, tentatively. He’s pointing at the Oreo Maggie has in one hand and the piece of supreme pizza in the other. 

“Yes,” Maggie says around a mouth full of food. “Would you like to try it?” 

Richie looks like he’s considering it, but declines when Eddie not-so-subtly shakes his head ‘no.’

“What about you two? Would you like an Oreo?” Maggie shakes the packaging at them. “I got them from my _pantry _.”__

__Eddie’s eyes are wide in his skinny face. He glances at Mike, who holds up one hand while using the other to hold his stomach. “We couldn’t possibly, Maggie. Thank you for the offer though.”_ _

__“Suit yourselves.” Maggie eats another Oreo and stomps her way into the master bedroom as soon as she can, taking the box of cookies with her._ _

__Went comes in a few minutes later, quietly shutting the door behind him. He sits next to her on the end of their bed, gently removes the Oreos from her hands and sets them down on the side table. He takes her hand in one of his own, wrinkled and gnarled with time. She’s known him for so long, should trust his judgement better than she does._ _

__“We’ll tell him how we feel about it after Christmas, okay?” Went tells her. He brings her hand up and kisses her knuckles._ _

__“Okay,” she agrees._ _

__There’s still Oreo dust on her fingers when she crawls into bed for the night. A problem for in-the-morning-Maggie to deal with._ _

__

__*_ _

__

__After dinner, Mike, Eddie and Richie get ready for bed in silence._ _

__The day has been so long and Mike just wants to go to sleep. Eddie is aggressively removing his shirt, balling it up in his hands and lobbing it into his open suitcase. His bare arms glow in the low light from the side table closest to the door._ _

__Mike looks over at Richie, standing at the foot of the bed with his hands clutching the hem of his shirt. He’s watching Eddie, the way his arms flex under his skin, the freckles dancing along his biceps._ _

__Mike watches Richie lick his lips._ _

__Maybe he’s not… too full for a treat after all._ _

__“Eddie,” Mike pitches his voice low and slow and hot. Richie cuts his eyes over hard, hair flapping around his head. Mike ignores him and waits for Eddie to turn. His eyes are dark when he does, lower lip wet and shining, swollen from a night spent worrying it._ _

__His pink nipples are pert in the chilly evening air. Mike reaches out for him, hand steady and fingers spread out. “Come here,” he says and Eddie does. He walks over, eyes flicking to Richie and back again._ _

__“Hey,” he says, bumping his hips against Mike’s. He leans up and kisses his jaw, lips dragging against his beard._ _

__“Do you want to mess around?” Mike asks. He presses his hand flat on the small of Eddie’s back, his fingertips dipping into the waistline of his pants, mirroring the way he was groping him this afternoon in the pantry._ _

__“Finish what you started, you mean?” Eddie kisses the ridge of Mike’s high cheekbones. “In the pantry?”_ _

__“You did what in the pantry?” Richie demands, voice high and strained. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, one hand fisted in the quilt. “What did you do in the pantry?”_ _

__Eddie kisses the bridge of Mike’s nose, his breath fanning out over Mike’s face, humid and warm. He slides his hands over the planes of Mike’s chest, over his knitted sweater. Mike shivers and digs his fingers into the slope of Eddie’s spine._ _

__“We were kissing… grinding…” Eddie murmurs. Mike looks over at Richie, over the top of Eddie’s head and grins when he sees the flush in his cheeks, the way his hands are gripping the quilt so hard his knuckles are white._ _

__“In the pantry?” he squeaks. Big man like him, reduced to mousey noises like this. It makes Mike’s blood run hot._ _

__“Yeah, dumbass, in the pantry,” Eddie says. He stops groping Mike long enough to glance over his shoulder and Richie’s hips cant up at the intensity of his gaze. Mike gets it. Eddie is a tornado and it’s worse when he’s turned on, when all that tenacity is turned on you like a homing beacon._ _

__Mike pushes Eddie’s shoulder, a gentle nudge moving him forward. He goes easy, drifting closer to where Richie sits on the bed. He fits himself in the space between his knees and bends at the waist, his hands on either side of Richie’s hairy face. He kisses him hard, hand gripping the back of his head._ _

__Richie groans into Eddie’s mouth and Mike sees a flash of tongue, Eddie’s teeth when he bites Richie’s bottom lip. Mike watches, right hand resting against his cock. It’s growing thicker and harder in his jeans. He strokes his thumb against the seam of his zipper._ _

__Eddie leans into Richie’s space, trying to cover as much of Richie as he can with his smaller body. He looks like he’s trying to crawl inside of him and Richie looks like he’s willing to let him. They fall backwards onto the bed, Richie grunting when Eddie lands on his kidney. Mike moves, settles his hands on Eddie’s smooth back, urging him on._ _

__“You guys look good,” Mike says, low heat bubbling in his chest. “Hot.”_ _

__“Get in here then,” Richie goads, and who is Mike to say no to that. He never backs down from a challenge._ _

__Mike strips out of his sweater, out of his t-shirt underneath. He unzips his jeans and steps out of the stiff fabric. His cock tents his briefs and arousal coils tight in the pit of his stomach when he looks up and Richie is watching him, eyes hot and arresting, while Eddie kisses his neck under his beard._ _

__“It’s really unfair,” Mike says, rubbing his hands up his own chest. “That I’m the only one who’s naked.”_ _

__“Whose fault is that?” Eddie fires back, lightning fast and making zero sense. The Eddie Kaspbrak special. Mike laughs and curls his fingers through Eddie’s belt loops and yanks him back, off Richie’s long body. Eddie squawks and it makes Richie laugh._ _

__Mike crawls into the bed, on the top of the quilt, and settles against the headboard while Eddie and Richie struggle out of their clothes. He palms his cock while he waits, legs spread out in front of him._ _

__Eddie is naked first, unashamed of his body in a way that makes Mike hard. Richie takes longer, pulling off his shirt like it offends him, like he wishes he didn’t have to. That makes Mike hard too. He loves them both, their weird insecurities and their weird confidences and all. The love makes him the hardest._ _

__He touches his cock through his underwear and jerks his head, wordlessly telling them to join him in bed._ _

__Richie is still in his boxers, red-and-green plaid cotton that matches the quilt more than it doesn’t. He sits on his knees, ass on his calves, halfway up the bed. Eddie makes an impatient noise, shoving his shoulder. He sways, but doesn’t move._ _

__“Sit against Mike’s chest, Rich,” Eddie orders in clipped tones. Mike doesn’t get it, but that tone out of Eddie’s thin mouth revs Richie’s engine. Today is no exception, and his lashes flutter against his cheeks in reply._ _

__He crawls the rest of the way up the bed and Mike draws him into a biting kiss before he can turn and fall against his chest, tight, breathy moan caught up in his throat. Mike coaxes it out and swallows it down._ _

__“What are you planning?” Mike asks Eddie, looking at him over Richie’s shoulder. His back feels good against Mike’s front, his pebbled nipples brushing the broad expanse of his shoulders. Eddie’s face is red and his lips are wet in the low lighting. His eyes are dark and wide and Mike has a blink-and-you-miss-it flash memory of Eddie on his knees, Mike’s cock perched on the thin edge of his bottom lip, eyes watery but determined._ _

__Mike shivers, rubs his hand under Richie’s arm and up his sternum, drawing him closer and squeezing his tit, fingertips slipping through the thick carpet of chest hair there. He pulls at it gently and smirks when Richie chokes out a groan, soft and small._ _

__“I’m going to fuck him, I think. Can you keep him quiet?”_ _

__They do this sometimes. They pretend Richie isn’t there, that he doesn’t really have a say in what they do to him, around him._ _

__Mike kisses the delicate skin under his ear, bites the lobe and looks at Eddie, licking the shell of Richie’s ear and watching Eddie’s fat cock grow thick in the thatch of pubic hair under his taut belly. “Yeah,” he rasps. “I think I can manage.”_ _

__“Good,” Eddie says. He rummages around in his suitcase, ass wiggling in the air distractingly. Richie breathes hard and Mike pinches one of his nipples hard._ _

__Eddie emerges, triumphant, with a small bottle of lube, straightening up and spinning around on his heels. He tosses it up the bed and it bounces off Richie’s leg and falls onto the quilt in the space between his knees. Eddie moves up the bed, graceless but sexy in the way a polished spreadsheet is sexy. Hard lines and neat precision._ _

__He sits on his knees between Richie’s legs, one hand on each thigh, and kisses him. Mike gets an up-close and personal view of their lips moving, their mouths rolling and sucking and licking into each other. Eddie takes the lead, but Richie gives as good as he gets, both hands fisted in Eddie’s hair and pulling his head back so he can nip at the wide expanse of his throat._ _

__Mike pinches Richie’s nipple again, his other hand slipping under the waistband of his boxers and playing with the hair at the base of his cock, fingertips brushing the silky skin there. Richie chokes against the flushed skin of Eddie’s bare neck. Eddie and Mike share a heated look, Mike biting his lip and glancing down to Eddie’s lap and back again pointedly. Eddie nods and rips himself away from Richie’s pursed lips, falling backwards onto his ass._ _

__Richie whimpers sadly, and Mike can sympathize. He takes his fingers off Richie nipple and stuffs them into his mouth instead._ _

__Eddie, from the middle of the bed, groans. His eyes shudder closed even as he’s reaching for the lube. “Keep him busy, Mikey,” Eddie tells him. He snaps open the bottle and pours lube into his cupped hand, wets his fingers and sits back. Eddie reaches between his legs, hissing when his forearm brushes against his cock. He rubs against his hole, a deep sigh escaping, pushing itself out of his chest. Richie groans and Mike runs his fingers over his tongue to quiet him down._ _

__Last night, Mike had fucked Eddie, so he’s already a little looser than he might have been otherwise. His prep is fast, practiced fingers working himself open while Richie and Mike watch him with hot eyes. Richie sucks hard on Mike’s fingers whenever Eddie rolls his hips like he can’t help himself._ _

__Mike makes a circle with his fist over the base of Richie’s hard cock and tuts at him whenever he tries to fuck into Mike’s tight fingers. Richie whines and wriggles his ass back against Mike’s cock, but he holds fast, slides his thumb under Richie’s jaw and forces his head back. Mike fits his lips to the joint between his neck and his shoulder, nose tickled by the wiry hair of Richie’s beard._ _

__When Eddie is done, he sits back up on his knees. He moves forward and yanks Richie’s boxers down under his balls, the elastic band pulled to snapping. Eddie spits on Richie’s cock, saliva dripping down from his lips and sliding down the hot, fire-red skin of Richie’s thick dick, washing it in bubbling spit. Eddie jacks the cock once, twice, his messy fingers brushing against Mike’s in his ministrations._ _

__“Hold him still, dude,” Eddie instructs, and Mike nods. He takes his pruney fingers out of Richie’s mouth and a string of spit follows them. It snaps and hangs out of Richie’s parted lips, falls against his chin, drips down to his chest hair, spiderwebbing in between the strands. Eddie licks the saliva off his chin while Mike holds each of his hands on Richie’s hips, bearing down so he’s held in place, immoible._ _

__Mike watches Eddie grip Richie’s fat cock, shimmery and wet and leaking out of its flushed red tip, and hold it steady while he fits himself over Richie’s body, pushing his cock into his hole, eyes closed and breathing labored. Mike lets go of one of Richie’s hips to grab a hold of Eddie’s shoulder, dragging his fingers across his freckled skin to the back of his head, holding him while he takes Richie’s cock to the hilt._ _

__“How’s it going?” Mike asks him, dipping his head to look into his eyes. They are heavy lidded, and narrowed._ _

__“Fuck you,” Eddie says, and rolls his hips._ _

__As quickly as he can, Mike’s other hand flies off Richie’s hip and slaps over his mouth, fingers digging into his cheek. He muffles Richie’s moans. They come from deep in his chest and he exhales hard against Mike’s hand, his back moving against Mike’s front and his ass bumps against Mike’s hard cock. He muffles himself against Richie’s shoulder._ _

__Eddie moves against Richie, up and down on his cock, careful not to creak the bedsprings too much, too loudly. He’s huffing and puffing, leaning over Richie’s shoulder to kiss Mike, their tongues sliding against each other, the wet glide of his mouth sending jolts of lightning down Mike’s spine. He feels his cock jerk against Richie’s ass, relishes the way Richie whines behind his fingers. His head is tipped back, his glasses slipping off his nose, down his forehead._ _

__“Fuck,” Eddie breathes, ragged exhale ghosting over Mike’s lips._ _

__“How does he feel?” Mike asks, tilting Richie’s head with the hand on his mouth, making sure he can hear them, hear them talking about him._ _

__Eddie grunts and circles his hips, nasty squelching ringing in Mike’s ears. Richie shivers and shifts, plants his feet on the bed and thrusts his hips up, hands on Eddie’s trim waist dragging him forward. He hums and Mike pulls on Eddie’s hair._ _

__“He feels so good,” Eddie whines, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “He feels really good, Mikey.”_ _

__“He’s got a good cock,” Mike agrees, nodding. His beard scrapes against Richie’s shoulder, he can hear it catching on the soft skin there._ _

__“Such a good cock. He’s good for fucking.” Eddie slams down and makes them all moan, Mike’s muffled in Richie’s shoulder, Eddie’s in Richie’s hair, and Richie’s by Mike’s hand._ _

__They move together, Mike rubbing himself on Richie’s lower back and Richie and Eddie fucking against him. Mike knows Eddie is about to blow when a fat gob of precome beads on his already sopping slit. It collects and collects and collects until it’s too fat, a big fat pearl of glittering precome. It hits its breaking point and drools down his cock, fitted against his belly and Richie’s, wetting the train of hair connecting Richie’s chest and his dark, thick bush, his cock jutting out and inside of Eddie’s sticky asshole._ _

__Mike pinches the back of Eddie’s neck and then moves his hand into Eddie’s lap, wraps his fingers around Eddie’s weeping cock and makes a tight fist around its head. He jacks Eddie off while he fucks himself on Richie’s cock. The bed is shaking with the effort and Mike hopes Richie’s parents can’t hear them from the first floor, where the master bedroom is located. He thinks they’re fine, they’re on the other side of the house after all._ _

__Mike stops thinking about the Toziers when Richie grinds back against his cock. Eddie is coming, teeth sunk into Richie’s shoulder. Richie’s mouth is open and wide and _wet_ under Mike’s hand. Eddie’s come is coating the fingers on his other hand. He’s wet and messy and his skin is burning hot with the need to come, for friction against his aching cock. _ _

__Richie comes next, likely tipped over the edge by Eddie’s deliciously clenching hole. Mike’s been inside of him enough that he knows the tight heat of it, the way he feels like a velvety vice grip. The memory of being inside of Eddie, rutting himself against Richie’s ass, has Mike not far from the edge himself._ _

__Mike shuffles back, shoulders wedged as far into the headboard as he’ll fit, his groin far enough away from the curve of Richie’s ass, the sweet dip of his lower back, that Mike can fit his hand, the one covered in Eddie’s dripping white come, into his briefs. He moves the fabric back with his wrist and the hand that was tight over Richie’s mouth. He jerks himself off, Eddie’s come making good lubrication and the slippery slide of his fist on his cock making slick sounds in the air, mixing with Richie’s heavy breathing, the huffing and puffing of Eddie’s come down._ _

__Mike closes his eyes and sighs. He feels tight and warm and ready to burst, urgency building under his gut and his blood singing. Richie falls way from him, the bed moving under his body and shifting Mike’s arm, making him hiss at the unexpected shift of his hand. Mike cracks open his eyes and sees Richie, sitting up on his elbows but otherwise laid back and on display. His own come is smeared on his belly, in the matted hair on his chest, down his stomach and in the thatch of his public hair. Eddie is next to him, trailing his fingers through the wet hair on Richie’s chest, circling his pink nipples and staring at Mike, big brown eyes hot. He has come shining between his toned thighs, Richie’s heavy hand gripping his hip._ _

__When Mike comes, it’s up his own chest, splashing over his chest hair and up in his full beard. He gets some on his lips, feels it slime and drip down into his chin hair. He laughs, shakily, and licks his lips, fingers rubbing at the come on his chest._ _

__“Fuck,” he breathes. He slumps down the bed, head cushioned by the guest bed pillows. He blinks up at the popcorned ceiling and reaches out blindly to slap a hand against Richie’s leg. He messages his fingers into the hair he finds there._ _

__“Can you go again?” Eddie asks. His voice sounds very far away._ _

__“Christmas comes once a year, Eds,” Richie tells him._ _

__“Once tonight, anyway,” Mike agrees._ _

__Eddie scoffs. “Weak, the both of you.”_ _

__“No one is stopping you from jerking off if you need to, Heat Miser,” Richie says._ _

__“The goddamn Grinch over there.” Mike tries to slap his other hand against Eddie’s leg, but only catches the blankets. He gives up and giggles._ _

__“Fuck both of you,” Eddie declares. “That doesn’t even make sense, the Grinch stole Christmas! In this analogy, if orgasms are Christmas, I’m trying to give you fucking Christmas, not take it away! If anything I’m Tim Allen, assholes.” Mike feels him pushing on his legs. He sits up and Eddie is repositioning himself, sitting up on his knees. He starts manhandling Richie, shoving him to sitting up._ _

__Richie laughs, “What are you doing?”_ _

__“You aren’t even going to touch the Tim Allen thing?” Mike asks Richie._ _

__“I don’t have time,” Richie replies and winks at Mike when Eddie makes an enraged sputtering sound like a backed up gardening hose._ _

__“Go sit up by Mike,” Eddie demands and smacks Mike’s knees with the back of his hand. “Sit up by the headboard.”_ _

__“Eds…” Mike raises his eyebrows. He reaches out for Richie and uses his body as leverage to sit up. He and Richie are shoulder to shoulder, spent and filthy. Richie looks good like this, cheeks flushed and covered in his own come. Mike runs his fingers down Richie’s arm and threads their fingers together, holding Richie’s hand the way he’d wanted to this morning, at the roadside tree stand._ _

__“Shh, Mikey, let me just--” Eddie spreads his knees and sits back against his feet, touching under his ass. Richie’s come leaks out of his ass and shines in the lamp light. He gathers some of it up in his fingers, spits in his other hand and creates a hole to fuck, his knuckles almost white with tension._ _

__“Oh, Eddie,” Richie coos. “You can’t get enough can you?”_ _

__Mike laughs at the scowl that spreads like butter over Eddie’s serious face. He’s jerking himself off, chest blotchy and nipples perky on his strong chest. Next to Mike, Richie is watching with rapt attention, his cock still hard and resting on his thigh. Watching Eddie follow his movements, Mike reaches over Richie and starts to cup his tit, fingers pinching at his nipple. Richie’s head tips back and he huffs softly. Eddie’s eyes narrow._ _

__“He can’t, can he, Rich?” Mike couldn’t stop how smug he sounds if he tried._ _

__Richie’s hand comes up and Mike can feel it rubbing against his leg, running dangerously close to his cock and then back down to his knee. He murmurs to Mike but loud enough for Eddie to hear, even over the squelching of his fingers working his cock, “What an insatiable slut, huh?”_ _

__“What the fuck, you guys?” Eddie is trying to sound upset, but he sounds wrecked instead. He groans and his hips jackrabbit into his fist._ _

__“I think he liked that,” Mike mock-whispers. He swipes his finger through the come in his chest hair and brings it up to Richie’s candy pink lips. He drags it across the bottom one like lip gloss. Richie’s tongue swipes out and he licks it up, greedy, like Mike’s come is a treat, the cookies he declined downstairs._ _

__“A slut who likes being called a slut? What a fun, slutty surprise!” Richie says this around Mike’s finger, so it comes out a little garbled, but when Mike tries to take his finger out of his mouth, Richie bites down so he’ll leave it in there._ _

__Eddie flips them off, concentrating the tight twist of his wrist under the mushroom head of his cock with his right hand. “You are so fucking rude, fucking Tweedle Dee and Tweedle D-dum.” He’s stuttering, attention waning. He’s rocking back in time with his thrusting hips and it is really a sight to be seen, red chest heaving, the damp hair around the base of his sticky, wet cock shining._ _

__“You should have said, ‘Takes a slut to know a slut, slut.’” Mike pinches and pulls hard on Richie’s nipple, the way he likes best but can’t stand for too long. His pain tolerance is abysmal for a self-proclaimed masochist._ _

__“N-not true, I am as innocent as the fresh baby Jesus.”_ _

__Eddie, as close as he is to blowing his load for the second time tonight, still manages to roll his eyes, whole body rocking from side-to-side. “You haven’t been innocent a day in your fucking life, you goddamn pervert.”_ _

__Mike laughs at them both. They’re so stupid. He loves them._ _

__“I love you guys,” he says and then Eddie comes all over his legs._ _

__He falls forward, angling his body so he falls against Richie’s other side and not into the wet sticky mess he’s made of both of their thighs, leg hair matted and filthy with dry and wet come. Richie looks down at their legs, untangles their fingers from where they are holding hands still and scoops it up where it’s the thickest, just above Mike’s knee. He smears it up his leg, but catches most of it in his fingers._ _

__Richie turns, body angled towards Eddie, who is laying face down in the quilt, his breath rattling in and out of his body like an ancient radiator. Richie tips him back by the shoulder and then wipes his hand on Eddie’s face, come splattering over the bridge of his freckled nose and up into his sweaty hair._ _

__Eddie shouts and then throws himself off the bed, rolling dramatically to the floor. He bounces up on his feet and curses. He curses them, their families, the horses they rode in on. “And fuck your fucking hair, asshole, get a fucking hair cut!”_ _

__Laughing, Richie says, “No,” and then shakes his head, shaggy hair flying everywhere._ _

__“We need to get cleaned up,” Mike points out, looking down at he and Richie and their dirty bodies._ _

__“We can share a shower,” Richie suggests, sounding hopeful._ _

__“Fuck you guys if you think you’re showering without me,” Eddie warns, finger wagging in the air._ _

__“I thought you hated us?” Mike cocks his head, smirk fighting to spread across his face._ _

__“I’m multi-fucking-faceted, asshole.”_ _

__Mike flips the waistband of his briefs up over his soft dick. He swings his legs off the bed and scrubs his hands over his bare arms. Now that his brain isn’t soaked in lust, it’s freezing. When he looks up, Eddie is in his underwear and Richie has fixed his boxers over his cock too. They’re all still covered in come and a little spit and Mike yawns, exhausted from the weird day and the weird holiday fuck fest._ _

__With heavy steps, Mike follows Richie and Eddie down the hallway to the bathroom. It’s small and decorated for Christmas, like the rest of the house. Bright red string lights frame the mirror over the sink and hand towels decorated in faded poinsettias hanging from the towel rack next to the standing shower._ _

__No one turns on the lights. The red glow in the room makes Mike groggy and warm. Eddie brought a change of underwear for them all, something Mike hadn’t thought of. He sets them down on the edge of the sink._ _

__The shower stall is too small for them all, too small for Mike alone, probably, but Eddie strips his and Mike’s briefs off and shoves them both bodily under the spray Richie turned on as hot as it would go. Eddie clicks the door shut and starts washing Mike off with Maggie Tozier’s gingerbread scented body wash, soapy loofah making quick work of his chest and back._ _

__Mike is sleepy. He lets Eddie wash off his body, carefully untangling the come in his chest hair, on his leg hair, in his beard. The humid, steamed air makes Mike’s head spin and he thinks it would probably be really nice to lay down in this shower._ _

__“Come on, Mikey, work with me here,” Eddie says, low like he’s scaring a secret. Mike nods and moves his arms, lets Eddie do whatever he wants for him._ _

__Mike thinks, _acts of service_ and smiles. From behind the stall door, unmistakably himself even though frosted glass, Richie hums and Mike can hear him sitting on the closed toilet seat, playing a game on his phone. _Quality time_. Mike smiles again. _ _

__Hazy and tired and half in dreamland, Mike perks right up when Eddie slaps his ass, wet smack ringing over the sound of running water. “You’re good, Mike,” Eddie says. “Swap out with Rich.”_ _

__Mike opens the door and slips out, shivering already even though the room is full of warmed steam. Richie hands Mike a towel and a clean pair of boxers before sliding past him and into the spray. Mike closes the stall door behind him and starts toweling off his dripping limbs. He can hear Eddie and Richie murmuring to each other, sweet smack of lips against skin, and puts his clean underwear on one leg at a time._ _

__“Maybe we could visit Thunder Hole,” Eddie suggests, louder than the water, which is how Mike knows he’s talking to him too. “You know, the day after Christmas. Before we head home.”_ _

__Richie opens his mouth, laughter crackling in his voice before he even starts speaking, but Mike beats him to it. “That’s what they call Richie’s asshole.”_ _

__Eddie is cackling and Richie is cursing him out for stealing his joke. Mike thinks to himself, _words of affirmation_. _ _

__

__*_ _

__

__Wentworth is the first person awake on Christmas morning._ _

__It’s overcast, but he doesn’t let that dampen his mood. Wentworth loves Christmas morning. He loves the pomp, the circumstance. The way everything feels just a little bit like magic._ _

__He starts a pot of coffee, filling the carafe all the way to the top before pouring it in the back of the machine. The tile floors are cold through his thick woolen socks and he sways his hips a little while he works, humming ‘All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth’ under his breath._ _

__“That’s a little on the nose, huh dad?” Richie comes into the kitchen from the hallway, wandering around his mother’s house in his boxer shorts like that’s appropriate._ _

__“Give me a break, kiddo. It’s Christmas,” Wentworth says and Richie shrugs, grinning, and Wentworth knows from experience that he has no intention of dropping it. Instead he hopes to distract him. “What are you doing up so early?”_ _

__“I dunno,” he says. He goes to tuck his hands in his pockets, but he isn’t wearing pants, so he just lets them hang awkwardly down by his sides instead. “Couldn’t sleep.”_ _

__Wentworth points to the stool on the other side of the island and waits until he’s sitting in it to hand him an apple from the basket by the sink. Richie likes those sickly sweet Gala apples no one else in the house eats, but Wentworth bought them specially at the store the last time he went to Hannafords because he knew he’d be coming home soon._ _

__Richie takes the fruit with a smile. He peels off the sticker and puts it on his cheek. It falls and catches on his beard hair instead of sticking to his skin. He leaves it there. Wentworth knows better at this point than to draw attention to it._ _

__“You know,” Wentworth says after a moment of quiet. He can hear the trees outside blowing in the wind. “I want you to be happy in your life, son.”_ _

__Richie nods, he doesn’t look at Wentworth, he rolls the apple across the counter top, from one hand to the other and back again. He picks at the stem. “I know,” he says, finally, and his voice is raw._ _

__“We’re always here for you,” he continues. “We love you.”_ _

__“Thanks,” Richie says, thick and stuck in his throat. He clears it, then clears it again. When he looks up, he’s smiling, a little watery, and takes a comically huge bite of his apple._ _

__“That’s enough of that,” Wentworth agrees. The coffee pot goes off just in time to save them from further emotional conversation._ _

__“What time is Rachel coming today?” Richie asks around a mouthful of apple. He uses his thumb to wipe juice off his lips._ _

__“She and Kody are coming with the kids around two, when we decorate the cookies. Then we do gifts.” This is the plan every year, it hasn’t deviated in almost seven of them. Wentworth wonders if Richie thinks bringing his boyfriend would change things. It doesn’t._ _

__“Okay,” Richie says. He slides off his chair and tosses his eaten apple into the trash. It bounces off the back of the can and falls into the pit._ _

__“I’m going to drag Eddie out of bed,” he says. “He’ll get really mad if he misses the fresh coffee.”_ _

__Wentworth smiles, but he feels like there’s a fist holding tight to his chest. “Go on then,” Wentworth says._ _

__As soon as Richie round the corner, he drops the smile. He sighs, heart heavy, and drags a coffee up out of the cabinet over the sink. After a moment, he pulls down a second mug for Maggie. He fills his, adds a splash of half and half. He tosses a teaspoon of sugar into Maggie’s. He brings them both back into their bedroom with him, leaving the kitchen to the kids for their morning rituals._ _

__

__*_ _

__

__Mike’s Christmas sweater is the same sweater he wore yesterday, but in a deep red that makes Eddie’s eyes glaze over, and makes Richie start to stutter, instead. He’s pulling it on over his head when Richie walks back into the room. Mike kisses him good morning and he tastes sticky and sweet. He licks his lips and threads his belt through his belt loop. He’s wearing black jeans today, and a pair of dark green wool socks._ _

__Eddie is still in the bathroom, probably raking product through his curls to get them under control. Before he left he got dressed in his red polo and a dark grey pair of khakis, looking for all the world like he’s going to work. Mike hasn’t seen Eddie in blue jeans since college, save for the cut-off shorts only Richie can convince him to wear in the summer._ _

__“Do you know what the plan is for today?” Mike asks Richie, who grabs his sleeping shirt by the back of its collar and drags it off his body that way, tossing it on their unmade bed. Eddie says making the bed only feeds bed mites, and Mike knows a losing battle when he sees one._ _

__“We need to help my mom with dinner, then Rachel and her brats will be here for cookies.” Richie picks up a lime green short-sleeve button-up patterned with tiny navy blue reindeer. He pulls it on over his head and then puts on the same jeans he wore yesterday with his very normal looking green plaid._ _

__“I’m excited to kick your asses at cookie decorating,” Eddie says, walking back into the room._ _

__Mike laughs, “It isn’t a contest.”_ _

__“Yes it is,” Richie and Eddie both reply at the same time, like the creepy twins from the Shining. Horrible._ _

__“How do you win, exactly?”_ _

__“You just do,” Richie says with a shrug. Eddie nods and Mike feels crazy, standing next to them when they’re like this, so he waves them off. He wanders away from their chatter and makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen, taking a moment to admire the poinsettias in the hallway. They really are beautiful._ _

__The kitchen is empty when he gets there, so he pokes around until he finds a mug. He pours himself some coffee from the pot and stirs in the sugar he finds out on the counter. It doesn’t taste especially good, but it’s coffee, so it hits the spot._ _

__He moves to stand next to the back windows, gazing out over the backyard, at the muted snow and ice. He drinks his coffee and wonders if the kitchen table has a leaf or if they’re all expected to sit squished together around this table built for four. There must be one. He decides he’ll check under the table cloth for a seam once he’s finished with his coffee. An icicle drops off the roof and lands with a heavy thump on the ground next to the window._ _

__Mike sips his coffee._ _

__Christine stumbles into the kitchen in her pajamas, fuzzy pink robe dangling off her shoulder. Mike waves ‘hello,’ but she doesn’t notice. She bypasses the coffee and grabs a cup from a cabinet, fills it with water from the tap. She drinks three glasses, rapid fire, before she finally notices Mike by the windows._ _

__“I met you yesterday,” she accuses._ _

__“Sort of,” he says. “I’m Mike.”_ _

__Christine nods and then fills her glass again. “Welcome to the family, Mike,” she says and then leaves the room._ _

__“Bye,” he says._ _

__

__Christmas day is busy. Once everyone is awake and the tasks are meted out, Mike ends up in the kitchen, helping Went use the cookie cutters on thick, rolled out sugar cookie dough._ _

__The smell of chilled sugar and flour floods his senses, fingers cold and clumsy with the cutters. Maggie had dumped a giant tupperware filled with them on the table next to their flat dough surface with strict instructions to only use the Christmas-themed cutters. Richie has already snuck over from his station on the island where he’s on ham duty to press a cutter shaped like a moose down before Mike could stop him._ _

__“It’s okay,” Went says. “It’s a Christmas moose.”_ _

__“Rudolph on steroids.” Richie winks and then dips away, dancing back across the kitchen to his own station._ _

__Carefully, Mike and Went fill the cookie sheets stacked up next to them on the table with snowflakes and Santas and stars, dough tacky and sticking to the parchment paper lining the bottoms of the trays. Went gets creative at one point and tosses a couple of bells on the crinkling paper for fun. He’s humming something Christmasy that Mike can’t place._ _

__They don’t talk while they do this. They don’t talk when they ball up the leftover dough and roll it back out and do it all over again._ _

__Mike thinks he likes that. It reminds him of his mom, in a way, the way she could sit in her own silence, exist within herself without anyone else. Mike’s never been like that. He’s distant because he was homeschooled with only his grandparents and the farm workers for company for so much of his childhood, but it’s not because he’s comfortable with himself. He’s always hated the distance between himself and everyone else, even Richie, even Eddie. Went though, he has this whole family, all of these people who let him exist on his own and open up for him when he’s ready._ _

__He’s pretty sure he’s overthinking it._ _

__Mike does that sometimes._ _

__He presses down on a star and when he lifts the cutter, the dough stays in the plastic confines. He taps it out with his fingers over the pan. The cookie dough is getting warm, butter breaking down and making it sticky, oily._ _

__“Here,” Went whispers, getting Mike’s attention. He’s holding some of the in-between-the-cookies dough folded over on itself hooked over his fingers. He glances around the room to make sure no one is looking at them before he dumps it in front of Mike and then jams another little pile he’s made for himself into his mouth._ _

__He motions for Mike to follow suit, and he does. Mike eats raw cookie dough and can’t help but look over at Eddie when he does it. He doesn’t notice, he’s busy chopping vegetables for a salad Mike is fairly certain no one else plans on eating. He smiles at Went around his forbidden snack and Went smiles back._ _

__

__Mike is still in the kitchen, making frosting under Maggie’s watchful gaze, blue food coloring staining the tips of his fingers, when he meets Richie’s older sister._ _

__Rachel is almost as tall as Richie, with a thick grey stripe starting at her temple and held back in a loose bun, plastic chopsticks sticking out at odd angles. Her look is severe, a black turtleneck and a long black skirt. She reminds Mike of every fun English teacher in a coming-of-age movie or if Mrs. Frizzle was a member of the Addams family. She seems a stark contract to Christine, who Mike has only seen in bright colors._ _

__Christine had disappeared into the garage to ‘grab a couple of things’ a few hours ago and never came back. Mike has no idea where she is, just that wherever she is, she’s causing her mother to sigh constantly._ _

__“Where is Chris?” is the first thing Rachel asks. The second is, “Who is that?” She’s pointing at Mike._ _

__“Richie’s friend,” Maggie answers, distractedly. “I have no idea where your sister is.” She’s draining a pot of boiling potatoes, the steam blowing up into her face._ _

__“Nice to meet you,” Mike says. “I would shake your hand but…” He wiggles his hand speckled with food coloring at her. Rachel wrinkles her nose._ _

__“I’m okay, thanks. Nice to meet you too.”_ _

__“Where’s Kody? The kids? Where are my grandbabies?” Maggie asks. She’s got the pan with the potatoes back on the stove top. She unwraps and plops an entire stick of butter into the starchy mess and starts mashing it all together._ _

__“I left them in the living room with Dad,” she replies. “And Richie’s other friend. We’ve been here for about thirty minutes. Kody’s dad’s house was a fucking disaster, so the kids are riled up.”_ _

__The way she says ‘friend’ sends off alarm bells in Mike’s head. She’s looking at him like she can see right through him. Did Richie’s parents not even mention the boyfriends thing? He understands if they aren’t ready to accept it, but Mike doesn’t want to come out right now. He’s covered in frosting and he spent all day baking sugar cookies for children he’s never met. He just can’t deal with that right now._ _

__Mike finishes stirring the blue coloring into the green, trying to make it a brighter, fuller color. Eddie had insisted, and then walked away. Mike adds that bowl to the others on the counter, red and white and black. He washes his hands in the sink, using Maggie’s Ajax dish soap to get deep in the grooves of his knuckles._ _

__“Dinner’s almost ready,” Maggie says, really beating those potatoes. Everything else is done, they’re just waiting on the mash. Mike wipes his hands with a paper towel and tosses that in the trash next to Richie’s first two attempts at making frosting before Mike stepped in._ _

__“Come on, Richie’s friend Mike,” Rachel says, taking his arm in her hands and pulling him out of the room and down the hallway. She drags him into the living room, where Richie is sitting on the floor next to the tree, playing with a little boy Mike hasn’t met yet._ _

__There’s a man, who must be Kody, sitting next to Eddie on the couch. They are deep in conversation about something, “dudes” and “mans” flying around, Eddie sitting spread out, the way he does when he’s talking to straight guys. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it._ _

__Kody is maybe 40, with bright red hair and rugged hands like he works outside for a living, the way Mike used to. He’s wearing a t-shirt and ripped blue jeans. Mike wonders what he and Eddie could possibly be talking about._ _

__Went is sitting on the other end of the couch, showing another little boy something on his iPad._ _

__Rachel hands Mike a plastic cup. “Eggnog,” she tells him. “Heavy on the nog.”_ _

__“That means it’s full of A-L-C-O-H-O-L,” Richie spells out, for all the little ears, even though it isn’t a curse word. Mike rolls his eyes, but takes a generous sip. The first explosive taste of rum sets his teeth on edge, but it also smooths out some of the wrinkles in his brain. He takes another sip._ _

__The front door slams open after Mike’s third, greedier drink from his eggnog cup and Christine stomps her way inside. She takes off her coat and her boots before she realizes she has an audience._ _

__“Can I fuc--” Rachel makes an abortive sound, like a fog horn. “--fudging help you?”_ _

__“Glad you could make it, Remedial English,” Richie says and holds his hand up. Without looking away from their younger sister, he and Rachel high-five._ _

__“Not everyone can be a college drop-out, Dickie,” Christine bites back. She and Rachel high-five next. Mike has never been gladder to be an only child. He and Eddie make eye contact but look away just as fast, minding their own business._ _

__“At least I have a job,” Richie volleys. Rachel does not high-five him for this and when Richie realizes she isn’t going to, he drops his hand and looks up at her like she has committed the ultimate betrayal._ _

__“You are a glorified circus clown!” Christine exclaims._ _

__Rachel nods. “You aren’t even a meteorologist,” she says. “You just read the weather reports someone else comes up with.”_ _

__Mike wonders when the right time to intervene is. He looks at Eddie, at Kody. They’re frozen in place. What’s the play here?_ _

__“They do this every year,” Went says, dismissive. He pokes at something on his iPad screen. This, unsurprisingly, doesn’t not instill confidence in Mike that they are all going to make it out of this room alive._ _

__“We wouldn’t have to if some of us would grow the fudge up,” Richie says._ _

__Christine’s face screws up and she opens her mouth, to start yelling probably, but Maggie chooses that moment to rush into the room, wiping her hands on her apron. “What is going on in her--!”_ _

__“Who is ‘honey bunches?’” the boy sitting next to Richie on the floor asks. He’s holding a small package in his hands. It’s wrapped in sparkling green paper._ _

__“I am,” Mike says. That’s what Richie calls him sometimes, when he’s being a pill. The eggnog has loosened his lips, but when he looks down at Richie, at the tiny gift, he doesn’t regret it. It feels good._ _

__“Don’t touch that!” Richie tries to grab the gift from his nephew, but the kid rolls onto his side, effectively blocking him. He’s laughing, childish giggles that grate._ _

__“You brought Mike a present but not me?” Eddie sounds outraged. “Were we supposed to bring presents? I don’t have your presents here, I left them at home. I can’t believe you brought Mike a gift and not me.”_ _

__Richie opens his mouth to respond, lips moving before any actual words come out. Before he can though, Christine bends down and picks up a box the same shape as the one in the child’s hands. It was sitting on the floor under the tree, next to its twin. “Does that make you, ‘of oats?’” she asks, brandishing the box, this one wrapped in sparkling red paper instead of green. She’s looking at Eddie._ _

__“I hate you so much,” Eddie tells Richie, whose face is dancing between panic and the joy he feels when he’s a pain in someone’s ass._ _

__“I’m serious, Christine, stop--!”_ _

__“Wait--” Kody is looking back and forth, his neck whipping around wildly._ _

__“Oh,” Went says, looking up from his iPad._ _

__Mike purses his lips._ _

__“Oh,” he says again, nodding with his eyes closed. “They’re polyamourous. You aren’t cheating!”_ _

__Mike opens his mouth to agree, confused that it was something that had to be realized, puzzle pieces falling into place in his rum soaked mind, but Richie interrupts. His hands are up by his face, fingers splayed, shoulders tense._ _

__“How do you know what that means!” he demands the same time Rachel asks,_ _

__“What the fuck is polyarmoris?”_ _

__“It’s when--” Mike starts to reply._ _

__Maggie says at the same time, “It’s when--”_ _

__“That’s a bad word!” the child on the couch crows with glee. “Fuck!”_ _

__Eddie explodes, voice screeching, “We’re a throuple! You thought we were cheating!?” The same time Rachel says,_ _

__“Dustin! No! Bad boy!”_ _

__“What, like a threesome?” Christine cocks her head to the side, sly smile on her face Mike recognizes from all the times Richie thinks he’s being funny. She spins Eddie’s gift in her fingers._ _

__“Chris, come on, give it back,” Richie pleads, half standing, reaching out. Christine holds it out of his range, gleeful._ _

__“Mom, what’s a threesome?” the boy on the floor asks, tugging on his mother’s sweater. She glances down at him and can only offer up a bewildered expression and a burdened sigh, still distracted by the child on the couch who won’t stop cursing._ _

__“Eddie’s gay?” Kody’s eyebrows are in his hairline. He looks betrayed, like Eddie is letting him down somehow. “Like, you like men?”_ _

__Richie groans so loudly the Christmas tree shakes and Eddie’s eyes narrow down to excruciating slits. “I am _attracted_ to men but I don’t _like_ them,” he says venomously._ _

__Somehow, he always manages to make it sound like it's the first time he’s ever said it. Richie might be a professional performer, but Eddie is the true actor in this family._ _

__Kody reels back like he’s been slapped. “But you race cars!”_ _

__“It’s a hobby! It’s part-time!” Eddie yells. “I’m a full-time gay!”_ _

__Mike rolls his eyes and Richie chokes. Maggie pushes forward, finger pointed and mouth open to respond, when the doorbell rings._ _

__Time grinds to a stop._ _

__Mike looks down at his eggnog and thinks about throwing it as hard as he can against the front door. He doesn’t._ _

__The doorbell rings again._ _

__Eddie, big eyes wide and feral, stands up from the couch and stalks over to the door, everything about the way he’s moving telegraphing that he is ready to start a fight. Mike looks for a place to set down his drink, just in case. Richie, he can see, is sitting up on his knees. Eddie rips open the heavy oak door in the middle of the mechanical trill of the doorbell ringing for the third time._ _

__This is not the time, Mike tells himself, but he can’t help but notice the way Eddie’s shoulders are moving under his polo, the way his scapula pushes in and then pulls back. Mike knows what that looks like when he’s naked. He’s always had a fairly irrational and inappropriate response to Eddie’s misplaced aggression._ _

__“Who the fuc--”_ _

__There’s a man on the other side of the Toziers’ front door. He’s wearing a red felt hat with a white pom on the end of its floppy point. Mike can see from his vantage point under the archway between the hallway and the living room, the way the man goes from canned but still joyously smiling to recoiling in fear. Mike shifts, rolls his shoulders._ _

__Behind him, six people holding honest-to-God candles in plastic cups stand in the walkway from the Toziers’ house to the main street outside. They open their mouths, the first notes of _God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen_ floating in the air, their breath coming out in white puffs around their faces. _ _

__“Nobody gives a shit about your secular monotheistic stolen holiday bullshit, you fucking leeches! Get out of here!” Eddie shouts, chest heaving. Mike doesn’t see the carolers' reactions because Eddie slams the door in their faces._ _

__It should be dead silent following an outburst like that, but Richie’s sisters and his mom all race to the front window to see the fallout. Richie scrambles to follow, popping up behind them to see over their shoulders while they jostle for the best view of the carnage. Mike and Went share a glance, just a second of fond amusement, before Mike puts down his drink, setting it on the side table next to the door where Maggie and Went keep their keys. The plastic cup thunks softly against the hardwood, sound lost in Tozier chatter over by the window, elbows flailing._ _

__Eddie’s shoulders are a tight line from one blade to the other, neck like concrete. Mike slides his hand up and plants it on the top of Eddie’s spine. He grows even tenser under Mike’s fingers, but he doesn’t take it personally. He’s bright red and shiny in the overhead light. He’s embarrassed._ _

__“You remembered,” he says, instead of any of the things he wants to say like, _you need to calm down_ or _I don’t want to pay to repair this door if you broke it_. “About Christmas.” _ _

__Eddie leans back into Mike’s hand but doesn’t loosen up. “You fucking talk about it enough,” he grumbles._ _

__“No,” Mike squeezes his hand on the top of Eddie’s spine. “Don’t brush it off. Thank you.”_ _

__“You’re fucking welcome!” Eddie exclaims, but it’s dead on arrival, falls flat from his mouth and onto the welcome mat._ _

__“Eds…” Mike hears Richie and turns, hand still on Eddie’s neck. Richie is standing in the entryway between the living room and the foyer. He has one large hand wrapped around the wooden frame. Mike can see his sisters and his dad peeking around him, like the Scooby Doo Gang._ _

__“It’s snowing outside?” Richie says this like a question. Like he doesn’t know it’s snowing outside or not. “Do you want to go stand… outside? In the snow? With me?” He looks at Mike and amends, “With us?”_ _

__Mike shrugs, blinking at Eddie, waiting for his response. He nods and rips open the door again, walks outside without his coat on. Mike follows behind him. He reaches down to take his hand. When he turns, Richie is there too, his own hand outstretched._ _

__

__It is snowing._ _

__Fat flakes fall from the sky and land on Mike’s shoulders, in Eddie’s hair. His breathing has flattened out and he seems like he’s calmed down. Mike’s hands are starting to shake though, from the cold and from the whole Tozier Family Christmas thing. He holds tight to Eddie and to Richie, one of their hands clasped tightly in his own._ _

__They look up at the moon, at the stars they can see this far outside of a real city, where the light pollution is minimal. When Mike tips his head back and opens his eyes, the flakes look like they’re flying right at him. It’s beautiful._ _

__Behind them, the front porch is lit up. The lights wrapped around the railings and the poles are red, like the ones in the bathroom, and it bathes the snowy front yard in a pretty glow. Mike feels calmer out here than he was inside. It’s quieter, for one, and it’s just him and the men that he loves. Better._ _

__He can still sort of feel the eggnog, but that’s not why his nose is numb._ _

__“I’m so sorry about this week, you guys,” Richie is saying, but Eddie makes an angry sound to shut him up. “I didn’t think-- I said-- There was a misunderstanding…”_ _

__“I need to talk to Greg about this--” Greg is Eddie’s therapist. “--Before I can really process the whole… event.” Eddie sighs. “I love you, though.”_ _

__“Me too,” Mike tells Richie. He squeezes his hand._ _

__“They’re my family but… so are you guys. You’re my family too, and even though,” Richie gestures vaguely behind his shoulder. “Even though that is a mess and I’m a part of that mess, I also want you to be a part of… all that. Too.”_ _

__Mike looks at Richie, goosebumps all over his bare arms, and at Eddie, who is turning lobster red from the cold, and wonders how long they are going to stand outside collecting snow on their clothes._ _

__Richie lets go of Mike’s hand, digs both of his hands into his pants’ pockets and pulls out the small gifts he wrapped in red and green paper. He gives the green one to Mike and the red one to Eddie._ _

__“I was going to wait until tonight, after everyone else left or went to bed or whatever but…” Richie trails off, biting his lips together. “This was the New Year’s um, thing. I had planned. But since Christmas is a magical time or whatever...” He rubs his pink nose._ _

__Mike turns the box over in his hands. He finds the back, where the paper has been taped together. He pushes his thumb under the seam and pops the tape, opening it slowly, carefully. He pushes his trash into the pockets of his pants before he lets himself really look at the gift._ _

__It’s a velvet box._ _

__Mike’s hands are shaking._ _

__He looks at Eddie, who refuses to look up from his own velvet box. His hands are shaking too._ _

__Mike opens the box, little metal hinges on the back clicking into place, holding the lid open so Mike can see, in the red glow of the porch, in the light coming out of the Toziers’ front window, a silver band. Simple, with a braided edge along the bottom._ _

__There’s a picture of Mike inside the lid, one of the ugly ones Richie took the night they stayed up until dawn painting Eddie’s home office. He’s covered in grey paint and glaring at the camera._ _

__When Mike looks up, Richie is on his knee. He’s looking up at them both, eyes wet. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat._ _

__“I know the last two days have been a fucking shitshow, but… Will you marry me?” Richie’s face is so open, so vulnerable, Mike almost can’t stand to look at it. He must be freezing, kneeling in the snow like that._ _

__“Oh,” Eddie drawls. Mike looks over and he’s got his eyes glued to his own ring. The picture from yesterday that Eddie sent Mike is taped to the inside of Eddie’s box. “Mikey, it looks like we’re getting proposed to.”_ _

__Mike smirks, glancing down at Richie before telling Eddie, “He’s done worse things.”_ _

__“What should we do, do you think?” Eddie asks. He’s pulling his ring out of its box, pausing to frown at the picture inside. He slips it on his own finger, answering his own question. He admires the ring in the low lighting from the porch, holding it up like that will help him get a better look._ _

__Richie whines, annoyed, and Mike ignores him._ _

__“I don’t know,” he says. “I guess we could love him? Say ‘yes’?”_ _

__“That sounds good to me, personally, as someone with zero stake in the situation,” Richie says. There’s a chatter to his teeth._ _

__“Yeah,” Mike agrees, reaching down to help haul Richie back up on his feet. “That sounds good to me too.”_ _

__Mike puts his own ring on while Eddie draws Richie in for a long kiss, deep and passionate, Richie bent nearly in half to keep up with Eddie trying to fall backwards. Mike steals him away for a kiss of his own, not letting catch his breath. Kissing and kissing and kissing him. His fiance._ _

__Richie pulls away at the sound of something loud smashing against the front window. They look up, Richie and Eddie and Mike, and see Went and Maggie, Rachel and Christine and Kody with the boys, cheering and banging on the glass. Maggie is crying, Mike can tell. Richie had to have gotten it from somewhere._ _

__“Do you guys want to head in,” Mike asks. “For Christmas dinner?”_ _

__“As a family,” Eddie agrees and takes Richie’s hand. His ring catches in the light and Mike smiles, thumbing at his own._ _

__

__Mike sits at the dinner table in Maggie and Went's kitchen, squished between Eddie and Christine. Maggie asks him to pass the corn so he does, moving the bowl under Eddie's disapproving scowl. Richie, sitting across from him, hands him the butter dish without being asked. He just knows.__

____

____

__It's nice, Mike thinks. To be with family._ _

____

❄️The End ❄️

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to tuberculosis for the beta, to the D-B gc for listening to me whine relentlessly about my progress and offering advice, to the organizer of this event who let me have not one but two extensions (THANK YOU!), to Hallmark for all those terrible holiday films, for the concept of No Shave November, and lastly, a huge thank you to the power of both Christmas and love. 
> 
> Happy holidays, nerds.


End file.
